How to ask Debbie Downer at the next table to please pipe down

Listen, all I wanted was a nice quiet dinner. Is that too much to ask?

A friend and I stopped at a neighborhood bar and grill last night — it wasn’t my neighborhood but close enough — and settled into a comfortable booth, opened the menu, and was suddenly assaulted by an unexpected and grotesque monologue from the peppy-looking suburban housewife and mother in the next booth. It was like one of the old Saturday Night Live sketches featuring Rachel Dratch as “Debbie Downer.” But in this case, horribly real!