Not wanted at burger king

I took the kids to Burger King for dinner tonight. It was the final destination of the orienteering course I had constructed for Taylor. I was feeling mighty proud of myself that my clues had successfully lead us there. We all got out and walked in and that all too familiar feeling of not being wanted hit. Embarrassingly enough it happens pretty frequently. I walk into a store or restaurant or something with the kids and everyone turns to stare. They cringe and then divert their eyes. It is easy to see their minds working as they are all quietly willing us to leave. Tonight was no different I could tell the Burger King employee was praying I would say "to go". But I didn't. I'm always more embarrassed than offended. I can easily understand their distaste. Like tonight, Rachel was wearing a "dress up" that looked more like the rags Cinderella wore while she worked then a princess gown. Anna had on her favorite shorts- that have been her favorite for several years. Over the years they have picked up several holes and stains and lost some color. Her legs have picked up several inches so that now the shorts end in a tight band on her upper thigh instead of loosely hanging to her knee. The kids did leave the house with their feet covered but along the way Taylor's flip flops had broken - which required every ones shoes to shift up. So Taylors feet were hanging off both ends of his flip flops, Ryan was wearing pink flip flops and Rachel was barefoot (I did carry her so we could conform to the "no shirt no shoes" sign in the window. Unless the dip in the reservoir they had just taken counts, I doubt any of them had taken a bath since the last Sunday. I was wearing holy shorts and my favorite tee shirt which came from DI. Rick bought it for a special day at work where they had to wear a tee shirt with a video game logo on it. (it's a weird office). Even though it smells and has mortal combat across the back I really like it. I have tried to get the smell out - it has been washed countless times with extra oxyclean and fabric softener but it still stinks. Anyway point is we looked like a bunch of filthy ruffians. I walked up to the counter and started to order. I could see the employee's eyes get big as she was looking over my shoulder at the kids. I turned around and the kids, and not the younger ones, were swinging on those ropes they have out to divided the lines. Not just pulling on them, but feet off the floor swinging. Luckily they ran to find a seat at my insistence before the ropes broke, although it did include a little shoving match to be first to the table. I finished the order and handed out the cups so the kids could get their drinks. Taylor apparently didn't get her lid on tight because Rachel's "suicide" spilled as she grabbed it off the drink counter to take it to our table. Dallin helped to clean it up while I tried to shield the mess from the other diner's view with my wide body. Dallin brought Rachel another cup of soda - the tops must have really been difficult to get on because as he handed it to her the entire cup spilled across the table. I just sighed and went to get more napkins. Dallin must have done a good job cleaning up the first spill because there was no more napkins left. I reluctantly went up to the counter to ask for some more. Luckily the employee who came over didn't speak the best English so I didn't have to explain other than say napkins. I was on my hands and knees trying to mop up a sickish looking brown liquid (the suicide drink popular among my children) when the lady came back with our order. She didn't say anything but it was disgust I saw in her face when she saw the table. She simply set the tray down and left. There were perfectly shaped little footprints leading across the floor up onto and across the bench and all over the table top where Rachel had stepped in the soda with her bare feet and climbed up on the table while she was crying that her seat was all wet. Utterly humiliated by this time I sat down on the wet and sticky bench and pulled Rachel next to me. I decided to just wipe up the spill with the seat of our pants. They were far from clean anyway.
All went ok for a few minutes until Taylor went to get ketchup for us. They didn't have little packets you had to squirt it into little cups. Luckily Taylor managed to fill the cups without mishap. Bringing them to the table was another story. Being the efficent boy he is he didn't want to take a lot of trips - so he filled his hands with 8 little cups of ketchup which ended up flying across our table hitting the wall, the table, the floor and us. Taylors fingers were covered in ketchup where he had been holding the cups. We still didn't have napkins. He licked off his fingers and I wiped the walls off the best I could with Rachel's pillow case. We finished eating and slunk out of that restaurant. I wanted to assure the woman behind the counter that next time we would use the drive through but I was too embarrassed to even look at her.