Ethnography

Ethnography

November 2, 2014

Dinner becomes a full contact sport

A dark, cold night, the smell of fresh rain all around as the ground is covered in puddles.  It seemed like a perfect day to go out to dinner before the start of the next week.  I decided that I also needed to catch up on the sports scores of the day; so I realized that going to a popular sports bar chain.  Once I had my buffalo wings I began to look around and observe what was going on around me.  At a nearby table were five males that were all 19-20, I recognized them from school, and had a class with one of them.  They were all taller, Caucasian males.  They seemed to be having a fun time, except one of them spent all of his time on his phone.  He didn’t really seem to care what was going on, and was only fixated on his small little screen.  The rest of his friends seemed to accept this and carried on a conversation without even trying to involve him as if it was a common thing.
A nearby table was made up of what looked like a group of about 12 high school students, all probably 16-18, and were either Caucasian or Hispanic.  This group was almost dead silent for most of the time, except when a song came on that they all knew.  Whenever the songs would begin to play, most of the males would burst out singing as loud as they possibly could, despite the judgmental looks of those around them.
At a table that was on almost the opposite side of the building was composed of a small Hispanic family.  The family was three children and two adults, being a typical Nuclear family.  This family, with the parents both in their mid-40’s, had three kids that were probably about 14, 12, and 8.  The family seemed to be having a good time, they were all sitting on bar stools, and that causes the problem that were about to unfold.  The youngest of the kids was tipping back on his barstool, and ended up falling back onto the floor.  The kid hit his head and began crying, he appeared to be alright however and got and continued screaming.  The staff raced over to ensure that the kid was alright, but he just seemed to be overreacting.  Eventually the kid calmed down and was able to return to his wings.

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