When your table is so crowded with vertical menus, little easels, spiral bound displays, plastic-encased specials, elaborate comdiments containers, napkin dispensers, floral displays, cardboard food advertisements, and crayons that you have barely any room on the tabletop before the food is even served - that's when you're suffering from table bling.
You go into a restaurant. Not the really nice kind, maybe, but not the kind with the arches on the roof. Your average chain restaurant. And you're sitting there with your friends. There are a lot of you around the table, and even before the wait staff brings you anything, you're already crowded. Why? Because there are all these *things* on the table. Vertical menu things and easel-based drink things and spiral bound dessert things and plastic encased specials things and an elaborate container with condiments in it plus some kind of fake floral thing and another brightly colored cardboard thing sticking out of a vase or carafe or whatever the heck it is and it's all garnished with a side of crayons (you're all adults out on business lunch and there are no kids whatsoever in the place). Table bling is gaudy, not worth the expense, and obnoxious... kind of like regular bling.
by Bonney Armstrong January 7, 2008