kids and salad bars - a rant.

[prole_for_peace]

saturday evening i decided i wanted a salad for dinner. so i went a local chain deli that has a good salad bar. when a person orders a salad bar they are given a special plate to use and they have to ask for a clean plate for subsequent trips.

ok, so i had my salad (damn i make a good one) and my bf shows up to join me. he kept looking past me at something in another part of the deli. a woman had come in with her 8 or so year old son and the boy was keeping my bf's attention. first he went to the self serve ice cream machine and filled a HUGE bowl and made a mess. later he had a cone and then, with about 1 inch of cone remaining, went back to pour chocolate syrup on it and all over the place. his mom was sitting facing all this just one booth away. she says nothing. when we get up for soda refills or napkins we keep giving him the stink eye. then the bf got real aggitated and i had to turn around to look. first off the kid and his mom did not purchase a salad bar salad but each of them were getting things off of it (real nice) then the kid goes up with a plate and starts getting a salad. he gets a lot of greens, decides he has too much and USES HIS HANDS TO PUT THEM BACK. WTF?? then he scrapes the ones that fell on the bar surface back into the container of salad. then he moved on to the boiled eggs. he got three, whoops too many, and picked up one, WITH HIS HAND, to put back.

i said that's it. i was done with my salad but other people would be eating that. i went to the manager and as i was telling him i could see the kid hoisting himself up on the bar so his feet were off the ground and he as kind of laying on it with his head under the sneeze guard and over about half the stuff in front of him.

as we were leaving i saw someone talking to the mother but she looked like she could care less. i wish i could have stayed to ask the manager what the woman had said but the bf was in a hurry for some reason. maybe thought there would be retaliation.

[El Fuego]

1. I don't blame you for ranting.

Kids running wild in restaurants is always a pet peeve of mine. I would have told the manager he needed to throw out the whole batch of lettuce.

[tigereye]

3. for the record that is gross

I always supervise my kid at the salad bar, although he is now 9 and pretty much knows what not to do. :)

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. This is why some kinds of murder should be declassified as garbage removal

You should have been able to plug that fucking useless shitass of a mother right in the head, and let the state move the kid to a parent who gives a flying fuck about whether the kid grows up to be a decent adult.

We need laws to give medals to people who clean up the trash, instead of putting them in jail.

[tigereye]

5. here we go

Rabrrrrr, I like you, but why do you get on clueless parents so? Clueless doesn't always equal evil and needing to be arrested....

I try to teach parents how to do the right thing with kids for a living, so I guess I have a bit more empathy for them. Most of the time.

:shrug:

[Rabrrrrrr]

18. It's just my impatience speaking

Of course, I wouldn't suggest such things ACTUALLY be done.

But it's my visceral, immediate response, and it feels SOOOOOOO good to let it out.

:-)

Probably a good half of the idiots out there who have children have done nothing more than breed. No real sense of what a child needs or wants, no real sense of wanting to provide any of that. They just breed; they want children not to raise a new person on this earth, but because they want a cute baby thing to parade around OR because they can't control their breeding.

Those are the parents who piss me off, and we find them at all economic levels, and among all races.

As much as I hate the movie Parenthood, I love the line about how you need a license to do practically anything, but any fuckhead can be a parent.

[JimmyJazz]

4. That was a particular kid with a particularly obnoxious parent.

So, your "kids and salad bars" title is somewhat confusing.

Are you saying kids don't belong in these kinds of restaurants? If so, you are going to need this:






:P

[tigereye]

6. yeah

I was looking for the eats popcorn smiley thing. :)

[JimmyJazz]

7. just type - :popcorn:

:popcorn:

[RevolutionaryActs]

9. Awwwwwwww it's our smiley

:D

[name not needed]

19. I have to ask this, what the HELL is that thing in your avatar?

:D

[RevolutionaryActs]

21. It's a happy, bouncy anime thing.

:P

[tigereye]

13. thanks JJ!

Opera doesn't like the smiley table here.

[prole_for_peace]

12. i guess i should have clarified this was one instance.

but i have seen many kids at salad bars and buffets that do these kinds of things.

[candy]

8. I haven't eaten from a sald bar in 15 years. Disgusting !

[demnan]

10. I wonder if she does it herself

I see all sorts of handling of food at salad bars, and it's not always children either.


Ewwwwwwww!

And I had salad bar today myself.

[stopbush]

11. Blame the adults, not the kids.

Last week I stopped in an airport restroom. Out of 7 guys using the facilities I was the only one who bothered washing his hands before exiting. Talk about unsanitary.

[prole_for_peace]

14. i do blame her.

she was eating food from it she hadn't paid for that was a bad example for her kid and she was sitting very close to where all this was going on and not once did she say anything to her kid.

[lpbk2713]

15. Ever seen an adult cough or sneeze at the buffet

and cover their mouth or nose and then with their next move they grab ahold of the serving spoon with that same hand?


Nauseating

:puke:

[Telly Savalas]

16. All the time.

They shouldn't let adults into buffets.

[xmas74]

17. Most places that I've been to have a 10 and under rule.

No one ten and under can go to a salad bar or buffet w/o their parent w/ them.
The woman just sounds like an idiot who never taught her child any manners. My five year old knows not to do anything of those things-even if I were not standing right next to her when she is making her salad!

[SmokingJacket]

20. That a salad bar is in any way sterile is an illusion!

The kid was merely pointing it out. You don't want to KNOW what the components of a salad bar have been through!

Not that I approve of that kind of lackadaisical parenting. I wear myself out trying to civilize my kids -- wish everyone would.

[Shell Beau]

22. That is the parents fault.

Most parents would have intervened. Salad bars can be gross. Hearing these kind of stories makes me never want to eat at one again.