Established 1776

With your help, we can raise $1,000,000 of awareness.

Spooning is still inappropriate touching

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

Dog: People who “spoon” their dips

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.

- F I N -

Share with other people:
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • TwitThis
  • Sphinn
  • E-mail this story to a friend!

September 9, 2008 | Filed Under food and eating 

comments

Leave a Reply




  • subscribe to this blog



     Subscribe to RSS

    Subscribe with Bloglines

    Add to Google

    Add to Technorati Favorites

    why you are here...

    You are here because you are awesome and you celebrate awesomeness.

    You are here to read a new post every weekday.

    You are here because there are two types of people in the world: people who are here, and people who suck.