Here’s a great way to make dining out exciting, fun and aaah-inspiring: do it with year-old identical twin bonus grandsons.

My wife, Shelley, and I recently had a restaurant lunch with the twins, Remy and Leo, and their parents, Allie and Matt. (For the record, I still can’t tell the boys apart. The look identical to me, thus I will refer to them as Remy/Leo in both the singular and plural).

Everyone knows that it’s a common curtesy of civilized society, that anytime toddlers are out in public, the public must repeatedly “oooh” and “aaah” over them, and remark how “cute” and “adorable” they are, as if they were the first toddlers every seen in public. (For added effect, you should hold your hand over your heart to indicate that the toddler’s total cuteness is causing your heart to palpitate with sheer joy).

As luck would have it, we were seated near a table with another set of young twin boys. When you have that many cute and adorable twins in one place it creates a critical mass of adorableness that causes everyone in the restaurant (and even people in the parking lot and in passing cars) to go into hyper-chronic fawning mode. There was so much “ooohing” and “aaahing” that pictures and posters started falling off the walls.

Remy/Leo was on one side of the table. And Remy/Leo was on the other side, sitting next to me. I supported his fine dining experience by giving him sips of water through a straw, spoon-feeding him applesauce and playing peek-a-boo with cucumber slices, from my salad, held over my eyes. (The twins and I hit it off well because we’re all at the same maturity level).

When you are seated next to a toddler in a restaurant you must always be alert for incoming pieces of flying food pelting you from many directions. The boys get so excited when dining out that their little arms and legs start flaying about, and food and utensils start flying about.

Stupidly, I tried to eat some of my meal, and didn’t pay attention to my surroundings, which were under a foodstuff mortar attack. I suffered heavy casualties. There’s no way the dry cleaners will be able to remove the ketchup stains.

Dining with twins is a great way to reduce your caloric intake because you don’t have time to eat. You’re too busy helping feed the boys, laughing, ooohing and aaahing and picking pieces of hamburger buns out of your clothing.

And don’t forget pictures.

You must photograph every frame of the kids’ every action and save them on your phone where they will be lost forever amid the 10,000 other photos of the kids.

Enjoying a meal with the twins is always a rewarding treat. I may leave with an empty stomach, but my soul is filled with laughter and hilarious memories.

I wish I could remember back to me carefree highchair days. (Hell, I wish I could remember what I did yesterday). What fun I must have had, because mealtimes for toddlers are some of the greatest times of their lives. Here’s 10 reasons why:

1. Let’s eat. You’re safely strapped into a chair with a tray of food in front of you and a bib around your neck. You’re psyched and ready for some serious consumption.

2. Silverware? As if. You eat with your fingers, hands and feet, and no one yells at you.

3. Unlimited eating surfaces: Who needs plates when you can eat off a tray, table, floor or pick off pieces of hamburger off your forehead and the face of the grandfather next to you.

4. The big swipe: When your highchair tray is full of food scraps, spilled beverages and pieces of drool sodden napkins, you simply brush it all away, with one swipe of your arm, letting the spiraling debris scatter and fall where it may.

5. You don’t have aim for your mouth. Hell no. The food can go anywhere on your person, clothing and the very surprised lady sitting at the table behind you.

6. Within arm’s reach: You can quickly, and without warning, snatch away food, utensils, the waitress’s pen and anything else you can reach. When you get it, immediately put it in your mouth.

7. Center of attention: People at nearby tables are laughing, pointing and taking photos of you as you use your greasy spaghetti-covered hands to snatch grandpa’s glasses off his face and throw them to the floor. “Ha-ha! How cute,” grandpa is required to say as he steps on his glasses and crushes them.

8. Wipe me: When you spill food or smear it all over yourself, someone is always there to wipe it clean with a napkin, towelette or grandpa’s sleeve.

9. You can do no wrong. In fact, if you do something wrong, like knock over grandpa’s glass of expensive craft beer, you don’t get scolded. Instead, everyone laughs, takes your picture, kisses you and never offers to cover grandpa’s dry-cleaning bill.

10. After dinner treats: You don’t have to worry about diving up the bill and how much to tip the waitress who is still combing pieces of French fries out of her hair.

And here’s the icing on the cake. Once you are sated, done making a mess and posing for photos, someone drives you home, gives you a warm bath, zips you up in a cozy onesie and tucks you in for a nice eight-hour slumber.

Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page and Twin Tiers Living.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.