People who eat the huge peppermint patties

You know when you go to a gas station and they have the huge, cheeseburger-sized peppermint patties?  Who in the hell can eat one of those things?  It’s like a little mint pizza, and I get a wintery-fresh gag reflex just thinking about mint pizza.  Sorry.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ll pop a little peppermint patty like a gorilla pops ants off a stick. They’re delicious little guys, but I’m definitely going to max out at 1.5 to 2 of them.  I could never deal with the peppermint frisbee: it’s just over the top.

After you finish your candy, you can tear the package open and have one of those shiny post-marathon blankets to keep your shoulders warm.

I just think that part of the magic of candy is proper sizing.  Candy makers have to size the candy just right so when you finish it, you’re either satisfied or you exercise poor judgment in buying another bar / bag.  Once you’ve started on that second bar, you realize your mistake, but you blame yourself, not the candy.  When you eat a large peppermint patty, you say, “Good Messiah, I’m not eating another one of these for at least 6 months.”  Candy’s fault.  Candy suffers.  Snickers has sold 2 bars in one day to one person, and York is going to sell 2 mint moon pies in a year.

People who eat the caramel variety of sundae

There are times that I look at people and classify them in odd ways (if you can imagine that).  For example, sometimes I’ll look at a person and say, “Hey, I bet he’s a tater tots person or she’s a french fries girl.”  To my credit, I’m right 97% of the time (although I have no data to support that).

So here’s the rub: I find myself classifying people as “caramel sundae” people only when there’s something a little “off” about that person.  You know what I mean.  The kind of person who eats a caramel sundae just because it’s the type of sundae that other people don’t eat.  The nonconformists who have incidentally become conformists of a different kind, because there are so many of them.  They’re the long-haired dudes, the computer programmers into naked raves, the mixed-media artists who glue a pack of frozen turkey bacon to a canvas and call it a political statement and who have 7 fans / family members who acknowledge the brilliance of their work years after they die from snorting Pixie Stix.

The classic sundae is, of course, hot fudge.  If you’re a hot fudge sundae eater, you are a gathered person with good taste who doesn’t pair the bright orange cummerbund with your tuxedo, but who realizes it’s better to be sharp and blend in than to get cute with it and have people point at you from across the room.  The caramel sundae eater, in essence, is a caramel person because they do not want to be a hot fudge person, which is just ridiculous and puerile, like a suburban teenager buying clothes from Hot Topic just to piss her parents off, when she’d rather just get J Crew in the first place.

I have tasted both, and here is what I have concluded:

• Hot fudge is the vastly superior flavor, and is immensely classy
• Caramel’s first bite has a lot of promise, but by bite 5, you want to throw it at someone.  It’s like a sugar lick
• If you eat a caramel sundae slowly, it will start to harden back into the horse hoof from whence it was made
• Hot fudge retains its structure as it cools, and can even be put in the freezer overnight for later enjoyment
• If you leave a spoon in a caramel sundae and store it in the freezer overnight, that spoon will become Excalibur, extricable only by a natural-born king

Now I have to clarify: I do like caramel.  I’ll pop Rolos like you wouldn’t believe.  But when it comes to what goes on my soft serve, Caramel has to know its role and disappear back into the purses and pockets of retirees.

Regular old folks who are comfortable with sporks

Have you ever really thought about how deep and wide the class struggle really is? You can see the differences everywhere: your clothing, your shoes, your home, your pets (we all know you have a dingy-ass dog that you traded for a bicycle tire or something), and yes, even your utensils.

Escargot tongs: let them know that you’re so rich, you’ll eat stuff that would make them want to puke.

I honestly have no idea what this is for, and I don’t want it in my house.

If you’re not born into wealth, you might never crack a nut or a crab claw.  You might never put ice into a glass with something other than your hand. You’ll probably never understand the concept of a napkin made of a material finer than any of your suits, or why a plate that measures 18″ across is used to serve half of a cherry tomato with a blade of grass as a side.

If you are born into wealth, you’ll probably never eat off a plate with ridges that keep your food separated, especially if that plate was what your food was just cooked in.  You probably don’t realize that cups can have tops or that your fork can come in a handy plastic bag with a one-ply napkin and some salt & pepper.  It doesn’t make perfect sense to you to unplug the crock pot and put it in the middle of the dinner table, if you even know what a crock pot is.

There are several well-known sayings that aim to unite the classes; messages usually including: everyone is born, everyone dies, and everyone eats.  But some are born with a silver spoon, some die and are buried inside silver caskets, and some eat off of silver escargot tongs.

Everyone does, however, put their pants on one leg at a time.  It’s just that my legs are tanner than yours from laying out on the bow of my yacht.

People who like a pizza-like meal that has barbeque chicken, pineapple, and/or gyro meat on it

Last night, I joined a handful of fellow Atlanta bloggers at a pizza joint.  It was an interesting experience.  Most of the people were pretty nice, some of the people were pretty normal, and at least one person was pretty cool.  Some of the time.

But aside from that, I learned an interesting lesson: you can learn a lot about a person by the type of pizza they order.

What happens when a Whole Foods yoga treehugger gets a hold of a pizza.  New rule: if you can no longer see the cheese, it is not a pizza.  Unless it’s a meat lovers and the cheese is being covered by our tasty animal friends.

I blame California Pizza Kitchen for this nonsense:  Thai pizza.  Gyro pizza.  BBQ chicken pizza (which is actually okay).  White pizza (WTF!?!).  Broccoli on pizza.  None of these are good situations.

I’m a believer that pizza comes with cheese (if you’re on a diet), pepperoni (if you’re know what stairs are), and maybe some sausage, mushroom, or garlic can be thrown on if you’re on a date that’s going badly.  This experimentation is uncalled for.  If I want a gyro, I’ll eat a gyro.  If I want a salad, I’ll order a salad.  But when I’m hungry for pizza, I don’t want a gyro salad pizza.

I only bring this up because I worry about the implications.  I think we’re on a slippery slope here: pizza is a gateway food and we’re seeing this experimentation take hold in tacos, too.  We have fried chicken tacos, asian tacos, desert tacos, and more.  Will our children be eating buffalo chicken Golden Grahams? This is a future I don’t want to see.

~ Other stuff ~

This group has a pretty fun activity of passing a napkin around where you write the answer to a single question.  The question last night was, “What is your biggest pet peeve?”  When I found out this was the question, I was about half a PSI from total skull explosion.  Seriously?  Someone asking me what my biggest pet peeve is?  Um, can I answer infinity times?

People who are still sticking to their diet and/or exercise on January 9th

I owe many, many people credit for this idea (through their actions, not conscious recommendations), but just one person lit the fuse a few days ago.  In fact, I’m meeting this person for lunch today, so we had to plan accordingly.  I would usually embellish this part, saying that we have to go to a restaurant that serves raw chicken meat and slices of american cheese with a nice glass of fiber-max colon blaster, but we’re actually going to a normal restaurant where, doubtlessly, a somewhat awkward and uncomfortable order will be placed.  Or, it would be awkward, but the waiters probably get special training at the end of December for this sort of thing.

I’ll have one ham and cheese sandwich, hold the bread, cut the cheese into 1/4″ cubes, and trim the edges off the ham, wrapped in a whole-wheat pita pocket dipped in water.  No, wait, Oprah said soy paper.  And a side salad with a 1/64th teaspoon of no-fat ranch dressing, seeds removed from the tomatoes, and croutons made from compressed prunes.  And a 64 oz. diet coke.  Oh, and can I go ahead and pre-order the key lime pie now?

I’ve been long confused (and once drawn in) by diets that are dreamed up by people whose brains produce the same output as the south end of a northbound elephant.  I tried the no-carb thing for about 32 minutes last year.  It didn’t work out for me.

But there are so many people who give these zero-something diets a shot each January.  Zero carbs, zero fat, or zero protein.  Considering that there are three nutritional things that your body needs to survive, and these just happen to be the three, it strikes me as a little strange that we try this stuff out, but we do. I honestly have never met a single person who stuck to one of these zero-diets and didn’t end up in the doctor’s office with fragile bones, sleepless nights, or a major toilet issue.  I’m not prepared, personally, to trade food for any of those three things.

But I suppose I should wish you all good luck.  Good luck with your zero diets.  Good luck with your Tae-Bo, volume 23.  Good luck with your office-chair kegel exercises and your 7-minute abs.  Good luck with Tony Little, Susan Powder, Richard Simmons, Chuck Norris, or whoever becomes the next celebrity home fitness guru with absurd hair.  You’re going to need it.

People who are yet to experience communion at the Church of Ronald

Most people like food.  Most of those people like good food, even great food, but so few people have eaten one of the finest items served on any menu in this great nation of ours.  Yes, I am speaking of the Filet-O-Fish.

A first-timer’s face says “expectations are low”, but this is the dawn of a lifelong relationship

Now, I don’t normally eat anything that has an “O”-modifier, which pretty much knocks half of any chincy Irish pub’s menu off of my list, but I have always been more than willing to make an exception for this hallmark of American achievement.

The ingredients involved in the filet-o-fish are simple and gag reflex inducing: a square fish patty, a square piece of american cheese, a dollop of tartar sauce, sandwiched between a bun so perfectly made from indigestible white flour it makes Wonderbread look like whole wheat.  For most people, that slice of american cheese is the outlier in the group, but I promise it is the secret ingredient in this handful of success so elegantly presented to you in its own sandwich coffin.  Nobody puts baby in a wrapper.

Everyone get out there and celebrate this great nation of excess by grabbing yourself a f-o-f this week.  You’ll thank me.

People who think they are professional food critics

Culinary genius at work.  Let’s put chocolate chips on pancakes.  How do people come up with this stuff?

Yelp thought they were helping us.  It is a great idea: put the power back in the hands of the people rather than the manipulated and arrogant professionals.  The only problem is that most of the people are idiots.

My wife and I were trying to figure out a good place to eat a few weeks ago, so we fired up the trusty MacBook and sailed on over to yelp, a site that lets amateurs rate restaurants (among other things) on a 5-point scale.

One of the first things you’ll notice on yelp is that every single restaurant in the world has 3.64 stars.  Part of the problem is that people don’t know how to rate restaurants.  Here is a 5-star review of one of the worst restaurants I have ever eaten at in Atlanta:

The dishes are garnished with hand-carved carrots and other vegetables that are stunning and just too pretty to eat.

Clearly, the food was too pretty for you to eat: if you had overcome the beauty of the carrots, you would have put the food in your mouth and puked in your Thai tea.  And here is a negative review of the place:

The utensils tell the story.  No “Thai Spoon,” just a fairly heavy and ornate bronze colored fork sat lonely atop a napkin.

Thank you, sage food guru Dickens.  ”As the dark curry clouds rolled over my rice noodles, the visages of patrons were overcome with duck sauce tears.”  Give me a fucking break.

Between these two reviews, and many others, this restaurant ends up getting almost the same score as one of my favorites in town, Watershed.  The chef at this place won the James Beard Award, which is sort of like an Oscar for these guys.  Here’s an excerpt from Krystal W’s in-depth review:

But honestly speaking when it comes to southern cuisine, the decor and the food (at least for me) go hand-in-hand. In other words, they kind of have to match to create the true ambiance of the south.

I couldn’t agree more.  I only eat southern food served by barefoot, shirtless men in overalls and straw hats.  If I ever get another taco not served in a place where chickens roam the floors, I’ll leave immediately.  If I’m allowed to discuss the government in a Chinese restaurant, the food simply CANNOT be good.  And don’t get me started on traditional Israeli food: the last time I went for some, not a SINGLE person tried to suicide bomb the place.  Unacceptable.

So as we perused the ratings, we strongly considered #22 in Atlanta: IHOP (no, I am not kidding); before deciding on one of our favorites, Tacqueria Del Sol, which was rated lower than the Chick Fil A down the street.

People don’t want to poison their family

My wife and I had lunch over the weekend with one of those couples you get along with exactly 51% of the time.  They’re nice people, but we disagree on SO many things that having a conversation about anything but the safest of topics will turn into some sort of a debate.  This time around, we did pretty well, but they reminded me of one of our legendary debates: that of buying discounted food.

Looking at this issue in a strictly economical sense, what we see is called a “demand shift”

Downward shift in demand for shitty beef

Demand shifts commonly happen when forces outside the normal marketplace are at work.  For example, a demand shift might happen if a shopper was “fucked in the head”.  In this case, a shopper would have a lower demand for quality because they are price conscious.  In other words, this person is willing to send themselves to the hospital to save $0.11 on ground beef that fell on the floor no less than 13 times and has now been mixed with food dye to give it less of that gray, dead meat look.

I drove by the Fresh Market the other day – a pretty good store – and saw a sign that said $5.99/lb. filet.  Now, I didn’t go in to investigate because I’m horribly allergic to grocery shopping, but I wondered: #1 how many people did this sign attract, and #2 filet of what?

I think that if you buy meat on sale and have a family, you should go to prison.  If you buy meat on sale and live alone, well, you can do the math there.

People who are not hypochondriacs with more than 35 boy scout achievement badges

There are two situations I can think of that would call for brushing your teeth after lunch:

1. Your dentist told you that your teeth are going to fall out of your head if you don’t
2. You’re having an office affair (which is in its early stages)

Maybe someone could help me out with this, but I am at a loss. When I walk into an office restroom, I’m always surprised to see someone in there brushing their teeth. For one thing, I would never brush my teeth in an office bathroom. I think that office bathrooms are disgusting, particularly the sink area, where there is always some sort of a meniscus-bound pool of water surrounding the sink, ready to attack anyone’s pants who leans toward the mirror to check out that fresh zit on their nose right before their quarterly review. Well, I can’t say I feel sorry for you and your new wet spot: that’s what you get for checking your pores and wearing pleats.

People have turned into cats, constantly cleaning, grooming, moisturizing, sanitizing, purifying, organic-izing everything we do. I was driving around yesterday with some people in the car who were talking about sharing the wine cup at church with other people. These are the same people who will hold up a bottled water, still sealed, and ask, “How old is this water?” I think that worrying about drinking out of a shared cup at church is a little too “clean”. I think we need to be a little more natural. We weren’t made to sanitize all the time. Our bodies are engineered to take the crap the world gives us.

The day Fluffy broke the silence: “Bitch, you need a man!”

A great example of a hero of mine is my cousin, who just had a baby about a year and a half ago. Every time the baby spits his pacifier out on the ground, it gets a little wipe on the shirt and it goes right back into baby’s mouth. Now, most people have a 5-stage pacifier detoxification and ionization process every time the thing makes contact with worldly air, but this baby gets a little grit every time he drops his pacifier, teaching the dual lessons of “you spit, you eat dirt”, and “tough it out, baby body”. We aint’ raisin’ no sissy. Some would want to call child services, but those are the parents with the kids who are allergic to their own eyelashes and have to pay $1,000 a month for dodgeball therapy.

I think that we need to get a little tougher here in America. The phobias of uncleanliness need to subside: my sources tell me that half of America’s health issues are related to “over cleaning”. That is a staggering statistic. Ok, it’s not technically a “statistic”, but it could be true.

If you’re brushing your teeth at lunch, I hope she’s worth it.

p.s. – water doesn’t go bad, in case you were wondering, dumbass.

People who do not drink a drink that must be “activated” by a slice of citrus or a jolly rancher

I hereby declare Friday the day that this blog talks about alcohol, Waffle House, or alcohol and Waffle House.

I owe this idea to a couple of guys who I used to work with, but I will instead retain all of the credit for the idea. The practice of taking credit for other people’s work is a staple of working in America, so I see this as a big opportunity to get ahead in this world by riding on the shoulders of others. Thanks for drowning to keep me dry.

Anyhow, I alone (with nobody else involved in the idea) was talking about people who like beers that come with accessories, or are themselves somehow gimmicky. There is definitely one segment of this world that loves the novelty in these beers, while there is another group who sees the novelty in making fun of the people who like these drinks. I fall into the latter category.

I think that the main challenge that I have to overcome with wheat beers, blueberry beer, pumpkin beer, Zima, Smirnoff Ice, and the like is the simple fact that they taste like shit. I think I would rather lick the back of a school bus on a rainy day than have a wheat beer. I also think that most of the world would agree, which is why they started putting oranges and lemons in these drinks. Congratulations, you now have an undrinkable beverage with a hint of sunny-d, and you will likely go home with a man (and there is no problem with that, if you’re into that sort of thing).

Breaking industry research conducted by me in the last 7 minutes gives us a greater view into the history and reasons behind this phenomenon. The facts reveal that this phenomenon, like the printing press, was being simultaneously developed in multiple locations around the world, with particular hot zones in San Francisco, Key West, Tallahassee, and Knoxville. Further research revealed the following, corrected for spelling mistakes in Tallahassee and Knoxville:

Further research is needed, but the initial wave of results is definitely revealing a trend.

If you would like to participate in a case study, please use the contact form above.

People who will be married before age 58

A few weeks ago, I was out having a nice dinner next to one of those couples who you can tell was on a first date. It was likely a blind date, too, or it was about to be a blind date because the woman was trying to stab her eyes out with her salad fork. I think it’s safe to say it was not going well.

The guy was doing most of the talking because, on a blind date, the less attractive of the two people always does the talking. He was talking about his job, how stupid his co-workers are, how brilliant his ideas are, where he had traveled (Sandals), and all sorts of things someone in solitary confinement would find interesting.

They enjoyed dinner, dessert, and finally coffee. Then the bill came. Phase one of date from hell began: the guy didn’t touch the bill. Not one iota of trying to pick that little folder up. The waitress appropriately put the bill exactly in the middle of the table, and there it awkwardly sat as he went on talking and she went on nodding, silently committing seppuku behind her napkin.

Finally, after about 3 minutes, he announces loudly enough for several tables to hear, “let me get this one, I have a gift card.” He proceeded to pay for the entire meal with his “AutoCAD Drafter of the Month” winnings from work. I think what is more embarrassing than using a gift card to help pay for a $150 dinner is using a gift card to pay for the entire meal. What kind of person has a $200 gift card for a restaurant?

I’m seeing more and more snafus as the world gets more “progressive”, but guys not paying for dates is just a little too much of a glimpse into the complete absence of happiness in a marriage. Keep your [gift] cards closer to your chest, guys.

People who are not strangely obsessed with saving $6

So this one is a real wonder of mine. What in the hell is so great about free lunch? Why, when the foil feeding trays of man slop roll in, does the office go abuzz?

Hello, Darling. I know you are condiment-less, but I want you and know you come with a dried-out oatmeal cookie.

I might not know much in this world, but I do know that I have never had a free lunch that didn’t taste like my desk:

• Pizza: it is impossible to bake 30 pizzas and then deliver them without them looking like a Salvador Dali painting. I do not like my pizza rare. I do not like “crust” that takes the shape of my fingers as I hold a slice. I do not like digging the cheese off of the box top and re-adhering it to the semi-cooked dough. FAIL
• Sandwiches: I subscribe to the idea that I would never eat at a restaurant that makes the same things I make at home. Sandwiches, by and large fall into this category. Sub sandwiches, rubens, melts, etc. are things I probably don’t make at home, so I’m fine with that, but if you slap sliced meats on a bagel or white bread, you deserve to go out of business. If you serve said sandwich without condiments, you deserve to also be slapped. And if you put one of those tomato slices that has the green, hard center that is going to make one of my teeth come out when I eat it, you deserve to be jailed.
• Tacos / BBQ: You might as well put a stick of food dynamite on our computers and notepads. There is no situation where BBQ or tacos make any sense inside of a work environment. I don’t enjoy eating cold dog ribs dipped in KC Masterpiece. And I especially don’t enjoy trying to write on a taco-meat soaked legal pad or type with my grease fingers.

So the food is bad, the experience is bad, the savings are minimal, and you don’t get out of the office for a midday break. I really cannot see a positive.

Let me know what you think on this one. Are you a free lunch lover? What are you going to do with your $36 you saved this year?

Covered : People who go to Waffle House at 2 A.M. for the spectacle

In honor of recent nighttime activities (woah there, cowboy), I feel the need to address this topic, and there’s no better day than a Friday since it’s either fresh in your minds or will be happening tonight. Of course, I’m talking about the 2 AM visit to Waffle House.

If you’re not an Atlantan or a southerner, this might not hit home with you, but I’m sure there’s some place that you can eat breakfast at 2 AM (or a 1/4” thick steak, if you so choose) in your neck of the woods. If there isn’t an establishment like this near you, find 6 people with 9 teeth and great personalities and teach them how to cook an omelette. Instant financial success.

Waffle House at 2 AM is proof that God exists. What other explanation could there possibly be for the shear joy of this collection of people, specifically created for our enjoyment? Now, don’t confuse this for being condescending. I am not going that direction here: I think that these are some of the nicest and most interesting people I have ever met, but it is truly an amazing sight to see the carnies, gangstas, frat boys, and goths (I thought they closed the Hot Topic stores in the mall?) all in one place, enjoying food and each other, likely under the influence of no less than 2 substances of choice. It is a picture of God’s harmony (minus the substance abuse part).

On my most recent visit, a friend of mine and I chose the WaHo on Northside, which is built into a Days Inn. Naturally, this heightens the experience, sort of like a bar that’s built inside a pool: the complementary forces of these two establishments create a whole greater than its parts. Anyhow, we walk in and I immediately recognize the hostess/watiress/chef (everyone here can do everything) from the Pharr Rd. location. We point at each other with that “I know you from somewhere else” look and figure it out after a few seconds. Now, in most situations, the people that work at Waffle House have seen too many people to remember any one of them, but Shayna and I have a unique experience together that created a lasting bond (again, woah cowboy), which I share with you now:

About a year ago, another friend of mine and I were at the Pharr Rd location and we were about to give our orders when the gin started doing the talking: I asked Shayna for the phone number of that location. She gave it to me and I immediately pulled out my phone and dialed while she started taking my friend’s order. The cook standing by the phone answered and I asked (behind a cupped hand over my mouth), “Can I please speak to Shayna?”

“Shayna. Phone call for you.” says the cook.

“Hang on guys.” She walks over to the phone. “Hello?”

“um yeah, I’d like to go ahead and place my order,” I say. “I’ll take the Texas Cheesesteak Pla–”

“Excuse me . . . Sir,” she interrupts, “are you coming in to pick this up?”

“No, I’m already here.”

Then it hits her like a man wearing a tank-top. She looks over and sees my dumb ass grin and the phone on the side of my head. I say “you ready?” into the phone, and she hangs up in humored-disgust.

This is one of my favorite Waffle House experiences, and one that has earned me very fast service and food that looks almost as orderly on my plate as it does in the pictures on the menu.

The Northside visit that night didn’t disappoint, either. While most of the action was away from our table, it was priceless. We watched an insanely tall black man wearing shirt reminiscent of the pattern on Fruit Stripe Gum walk the parking lot security guy though each of the 600 features of his BMW 328i convertible. Just watching this praying mantis of a man get in and out of this car was enough, but the level to which the security guy was impressed with the visor lights and the size of the trunk was equally entertaining. There could have been a murder right behind him, but he wasn’t going to take his attention off of the rain-sensing windshield wipers. Funny enough, my friend and I actually thought this guy was in trouble when we first noticed this going on. He was emptying his trunk out onto the curb while the security guy held up a flashlight. The search for contraband continued until we realized the contraband was just vehicle features.

So thank you to those who enrich my life with your presence here on earth and your presence in Waffle House. I’m not sure what compels you to go there at those hours (do you think there’s a carnie blog about the ridiculous kids in their polo shirts calling the waitresses?), but thank you and please keep doing it. See you next week.

P.S. No. You don’t take pictures of this. You’ll just frack up the whole chi of the situation. Moments like these were meant to enjoy in person, and to those who photograph Waffle House, shame on you. If you need photographic evidence to convince other people of what you saw or encourage them to go, they’re not worth your time and should not be your friend. Dump the baggage.

Eminem: People who occasionally eat in a way other people find revolting

Do you have any friends who bring out the best in your gag reflex when they eat? You know, I’m talking about the people who chew with their mouthes open, get a meat ‘n 3 and blend it all together, or worse yet, the people who become food cannons when they talk to you? Some people are just disgusting when they sit down for a meal, and that’s what makes the rest of us genetically superior, right?

We are more refined. We don’t sip on our straw after a fresh mouthful of mashed potatoes, at best case leaving a globule of starch on the end of the straw and worst case starting a spud titration in our beverage. We chew enough times to avoid a choking hazard, have a sip of our drinks; maybe have a short talk with food perched on the end of our forks before continuing. Sneaking food into our mouthes during long vowels in the midst of conversation is not abiding by the rules, so we’re not going to do it. When someone asks us a question while we’re eating, we put up a “1 second” finger and bug our eyes out, feigning embarrassment, but again not breaking simple etiquette.

There are also those people who talk with their mouthes full, but do so behind the magic finger curtain (people who “cover” their mouthes so you can’t see the cud while they’re explaining something to you). They think they’re following the rules, but with any imagination and 20/20 vision, you can imagine what’s going on behind those fingers and often see some mouth confetti falling out under the hand of deception. Please stop this terrible practice. Often enough, people don’t give a damn what you have to say in the first place, and they’re certainly not hearing you when you use your food blast shield.

But is it really true the rest of us abide by this high standard all of the time? What about those meals where you’re home alone or just grabbing a snack at the mall? I know that’s when I break down:

I’ve recently taken to the European phenomenon of eating my fries with mayonnaise. To most red-blooded and red-condimented Americans, this is already a class 1 offense, but in my most private fry-eating moments, particularly with high surface area papas fritas like those available at Chick-Fil-A, I have begun doing direct package-to-fry condiment distribution. As if sopping up mayo in the grid of a waffle fry wasn’t disgusting enough, people have to watch me squeeze my pillow of flavor onto this fry like it’s toothpaste, and yes, I can feel the eyes. It’s particularly bad when I don’t get a clean tear on the corner and an entire side of the packet is open like a nasty wound. Then it gets really messy. I do want to tell these people that I’m not normally like this, but by that time the fry is in the mouth, and the ritual has begun on another. I can’t help myself, and I can’t stop.

So I guess the moral of the story is that while I am clearly more refined than most others (just look at the evidence, people), I can slum it from time to time. Much like how I am intimately familiar with black struggles in America because I occasionally spin some hip hop, I can relate to our bad habited brethren because I do let my hair down. It’s not something I’m always proud of, but I do my best to stay in touch with all reaches of humanity.

What is your “out of body” habit?

p.s. – I can’t say that my goal in this wasn’t to make you puke. Now you know how I feel.

Stripes: People who break the last chip in half

I have to admit: I am a chip breaker. I will keep breaking that last chip in half until I get to the molecular level, and I’m not sorry about this. The way I see it, as long as I keep breaking the chip, I’m giving the waiter enough time to come by and offer one of the many questions in life people never say no to: “More chips?” This question has good company with “More money?”, “More sex?”, and “Less Barbara Walters?”. In fact, questions like these are so obvious, I’m not even sure why they’re even asked.

On the other hand, nobody likes the guy who takes the last chip. I use “guy” here purposefully: people hate the guy who obnoxiously takes the last chip, but they just feel sorry for the girl who does, unless she’s hot. Some might call this sexist, but we all know who those people are.

Taking the last chip says a lot about someone (or maybe it just says one of many things, including):

• “I threw a winning touchdown pass in a varsity football game and won regionals, bitch.”
• “I am accomplished in my career: I manage no less than five people who hate their lives as a direct result of my personality.”
• “I am a suburban mom and will eat all of these chips just to piss my husband off until my next glass of Chardonnay gets to the table. Oooh, that waiter is cute.”

I think it’s relatively accurate to say if you’ve found someone who is a last chip eater, you’ve found an asshole. Many of the world’s problems are directly caused by last chip eaters. You can probably even identify the type just thinking about it:

Gengis Khan – last chip
Mohandas Ghandi – chip breaker
Dick Cheney – last chip
Barack Obama – chip breaker
Hilary Clinton – last chip
Jon Stewart – chip breaker
Bill Maher – last chip
Tiger Woods – chip breaker
Phil Mickelson – last chip
John Daly – just drinks the cheese dip
Jesus – fed 50 people with one fish, what do you think?

Among friends, the dynamic can be a little different. Last chip eating can happen, but it doesn’t happen without a call-out. Sometimes there’s an offer: “do you want the last chip?” No, you fat ass. You don’t mean that. Just eat it. I think that situations like these can be life-enriching, but don’t try to take this practice out of your circle of friends: you’ll just look like a jerk.

I grew up with a last chip eater in the house. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

Cat: People who dip directly in the bowl

Lately, I’ve seen more of this “courtesy” extended among groups of diners: people picking up their spoons or (worse yet) the spoon provided with their dips, using it to distribute their flavored fats onto their salty carbs rather than direct-dipping said carbs into said fats. I think that people who offer this service to their tablemates really feel good about themselves, and truthfully, we’re probably not that far from the Brownies and Eagle Scouts issuing some sort of accomplishment patches associated with this type of dining “best practice”.

But the spooners are quickly disappointed by the inevitable direct-dippers that sit beside or across from them. And they show it. Usually when some maverick direct-dipper draws out a portion of the dip, the spooner(s) will hover their spoon over the spinach concoction and just watch the DDer put that chip in their stupid little faces, hoping that the stare alone is enough to change the behavior. It isn’t.

Eventually, one of the blissfully unaware office mates or family members at the table will notice the spooner’s rising temperature and ask what is wrong. Since the attention has already been drawn, the spooner can no longer hold in his anger: “Well, Pam (or other typical blissfully unaware name), Tim here is dipping his chips directly into the bowl while the rest of us are politely spooning our dips onto our plates.” And so begins one of the most classic restaurant dialogues of our time:

DDer: “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize that was bothering you, John. I’ll . . .”

Spooner: “Well it IS bothering me. It’s bothering all of us!”

DD: “Is it bothering you, Pam?”

[Pam hangs her head, trying stay out of it and revealing the surprising thinness of her red, permed hair]

DD: “How about you, Steve?”

[Steve quickly draws from the straw in his Diet Coke, looking over the rim of his glass toward the kitchen]

DD: “Well, I guess it’s not that big of a deal, but if you’re going to be a dick about it, I’ll just use the spoon”

S: “Oh, sure. Start spooning the dip now, after it’s already too late. Just great. Just GREAT.”

The spooner puts down the spoon and stops eating the dip: an act of shear will. The DD spoons some on to his 3” plate and starts trying to get it on to the chip, but he’s just pushing the dip around the plate in circles.

DD: “How the fuck are you even supposed to do this? I can’t even get the dip onto the chip. This is ridiculous.”

S: “Like this.” Spooner pushes the dip onto his chip with the spoon, and then scoops some sour cream with the same spoon to put on the chip.

DD: “Oh well shit, John, now you’ve gone and contaminated the sour cream with spinach dip. Well engineered solution you have there.”

At this point, silence usually falls over the group as the table members start to use knives, forks, and other utensils to distribute their dips, cleaning after each use over the paranoia of cross-contamination. The dip plate starts to look like a fondue pot with 37 pieces of silverware hanging to its edges. Eventually, the DD just picks up his chip and goes for the direct method once again. The rest of the table follows.

So the lesson here is that spoon dipping is a farce. Bowls were engineered for dipping; 3” saucers were engineered for staying stacked on the edge of the table. Offer the contamination-obsessed the option of buying their own dips because things are going to get a little crazy at TGI Friday’s, and there’s nothing you can do about it. In there, it’s always Friday.

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