I was at Denny’s this morning – sober as a judge.I ordered up one of those $5.99 breakfast skillets; the ones with the plastic bacon, rubbery scrambled eggs, and a short stack of anorexic looking pancakes.

My lady and I were sitting in an unusually quiet section of the restaurant, sipping our coffees and scoring the taste of a side of synthetic sausage links.

It was nice, calm, soothing.

Halfway through my second cup ‘o Joe, a small group of what I can only assume were freshman college girls, invaded the booth beside us.

The silence that had previously settled in our section was suddenly raped out of the air amidst a wave of high-pitched valley girl “likes,” “ums,” and “omigods.”

The blonde girl with the brunette roots then began chattering away at a decibel loud enough to make Spinal Tap proud.

“Like, I was on campus, like, last night, and I had like, a bunch of Bud Light with lime, and, um, Trevor was totally being a prick, and like, he won’t answer me back on Facebook, and I don’t wanna be a bitch, but, he’s being like, a total asshole.”

Seriously – she made Sarah Palin sound scholarly.

As shotguns of rage began boiling up in my lady’s eyes, we quickly finished up our meals, paid the bill, and walked back to my car shouting our best Elle Woods impressions for all the parking lot to hear.

Now, I bring up this group of bubblegum-chewing tee-hee-heers to illustrate an all too common occurrence in restaurants: stupid f’ing people (SFP).

SFP can arrive in a number of forms, often disrupting the fabric of the mellow chillness that is the eating out experience.

Whether it’s someone constantly coughing up their lungs in the seat next to you, or a pushover parent who allows their wretched spawn to whine and cry when Applebees runs out of hotdogs, SFP serve one purpose: ruining your good time.

With the price of going out to eat bordering on obscene in many restaurants (sans Taco Bell), one certainly doesn’t want to fork over hard-earned cash in exchange for a miserable evening that molests your wallet and your mentality.

Now, you could let them ruin your otherwise enthralling meal. You could get stabby with a butter knife or drown someone in their Grey Goose martini, but there are other alternatives.

Here’s what I recommend.

When some group of drunken frat boys or girly gigglers decides to infest the joint, I suggest a passive aggressive approach. Continue your own conversation at a slightly higher volume, keeping a calm, monotone sense of “above-it-all-ism.”

“Yeah, I hate it when people can’t hold their booze. What a bunch of jagoffs,” you’d say slightly louder than you normally would.

Trust me, I’ve done this. Drunks hate being called out as sloshed idiots in public — especially freshman.

Got a whiney kid banshee-screaming bloody murder? Do the same. “God, my parents would have cracked my jaw if I pitched a fit like that,” or something.

The technique generally works in most situations. People don’t like having their own stupidity called out in public, particularly in an arrogant, holier-than-thou sort of way.

But hey, if coming off as a snob means I can enjoy a relaxing meal in peace, than so be it. It’s still a better alternative to dunking some loud mouth in the deep fryer.

Most of the time, anyway.