Can I just eat in #%&*@ peace, please?

I was dining at a restaurant in Lawrence, Kansas, last weekend — a mellow, Asian restaurant on Massachusetts Street — and was ready to get up and leave after five minutes. Now, I usually don’t care what kind of music a dining venue plays — Muzak, Tubular Bells, old-school country and western, Lawrence Welk, Lady Gaga — as long as it stays in the background and isn’t dominating the dining experience. Is that too much to ask?

But at 2 p.m., this dining room was practically vibrating from some loud, headbanging, totally obtrusive soundtrack. Loud enough that I couldn’t even focus on the menu. It was almost like having an uninvited guest at our table: a visceral presence that was unmistakably there. One has are two options in this kind of scenario: get up and leave or ask if the music can be turned down. Way down.