I think going out to eat on Mother's Day is every families' tradition.
"You know where we want to go Dad," announced Heather.
"I'm not eating at anyplace named 'Chuck-o-Rama'," I insisted.
"It's called 'Old Country Buffet' now," Heather explained.
"Gwynne, it's your Mother's Day?" I grasped for support from my wife.
"I don't care," she capitulated to the kids' demands.
The line was literally out the door. It gave me ample time to fully contemplate the many Norman Rockwell prints adorning the hallway queue. The whole place echoed clanking dishes. The large "Senior Discount" sign at the cash register blocked most of the view out of the window. The guy standing next to us in line was wearing moccasins, had a Leatherman's knife hanging from his sweat pants, and called his wife "Mamma". I knew his name was Toby because he was wearing a large plastic "Hello, my name is..." photo ID hooked to his suspenders.
We were finally ushered to a long, multiple-seating table. Our tablemates were Mabel, her husband, J.R., and their kids. Little Ollie liked his pork-n-beans swirled into his cottage cheese, with a little orange juice added for color. Mabel asked for a doggie bag for Uncle Bert, who was in the nursing home. J.R. felt a compulsion to pick his nose.
I remained at the table while the family rapidly dispersed to reconnoiter the eating. As Heath scurried off, I could hear him saying, "I'm just here for the food!" There were endless birthday announcements over the loudspeaker asking patrons to applaud. I surveyed the occupants of the tables around us. A platinum-haired, elderly lady, forgot where she was sitting. In fact, she'd forgotten who she was with and what her name was. There were four highchairs at the table next to us.
Cautiously, I walked through the cramped, crowded food islands holding my plate. At the beverage table, the young boy in front of me turned to comment, "I like to mix my white milk with chocolate milk." Gwynne had told me the melon was good but by the time I found the salad bar there was none left, but there was a girl there sneezing incessantly. "Don't worry," her mother reassured me. "It's only allergies."
Two boys handled every single cookie, dozens of them, to pick the best one. Then my son Haven proceeded to touch every cookie again, to see if the kids had left any good ones. I had to be careful what I chose to eat because there were no forks. I waited for a guy to deliver clean, steaming forks once, but a crowd pushed themselves in front of me and took them all first.
As it turned out, I only got a hard roll and a cookie... But I didn't eat the cookie.

This is why I don't eat out anymore. Either make it at home or it must be in a hermetically sealed package. Once years ago the family visited Williamsburg during the summer. We bought a bag of fresh baked ginger cookies and as we ate them decided to watch the authentically attired cook who made the cookies. When he got to the rolling pin stage it was apparent the heat was getting to him as the sweat poured down his face and dripped into the dough.

Needless to say we threw the rest of the cookies away. Some of us stopped mid-chew. My older sister turned quite pale.

Lesson learned: Don't buy cookies in Williamsburg during August.

-vern

Good stuff! My wife and I were at a restaurant that also had a mini-buffet.. It was chilly out, and we watched a lady walk in, and as she was being shown to here seat, she stopped by the buffet, held her hands over the steam coming up and proceeded to "wash" her hands in the steam. Yummy!

I've learned to go with the "don't see it, doesn't happen" syndrome. I'm not exactly a germ freak, but would prefer not to have pre-sneezed food. But, if you go the route that you don't want "dirty" food, you have to do what Vern said. And I'm not about to put myself in a situation where I can only eat the food I make (which, if you watch how it's made, will find out that you have the same problem with processed food as well) and I'm not going to start a garden so I know how the food is handled/processed...

So, next time you go to OCB (or any buffet, for that matter), put your blinders on.. you'll have much more fun and eat more as well.

MY experience at restaurants (not necessarily Old Country) is the 'VACUUM'... it happens almost every time.

You go in..order...get served, and start eating. THEN- a waitress or busboy will bring out the dreaded vacuum...you know the one- a 1960's Kirby with original bag. When they vacuum in a stream of sunshine you can see the cloud of dust it raises. But in my case, they 'gravitate' towards my table and vacuum right in front of me...I even had a waitress ask me if I would lift my feet once!

GOOD STUFF MARTIN!

If it wasnt so sad, this would be the best commedy I read/heard of in the last half year or so
Very good stuff and so entertaining to read because of the dry humor

*Fuchur*

I went to the OCB this morning, because my kids like to go to have a healthy breakfast of waffles, cinnamon rolls, sausage, bacon, powdered eggs and ice-cream for dessert. And because we get coupons in the mail, so they get this fabulous feast for free. (I still have to pay $10).

Because of this thread, I kept my eyes peeled for anything disgusting, but there was no sneezing, no barehanded food handling, nothing! (There were still the people who are too big to wear anything but sweatpants, though.) So, as a test, I fondled all the cookies, like some mad cookie pervert. Nobody batted an eye.