Sneeze Guard Optional

Buffets.  We've all been to at least ONE in our lifetime.  Don't lie, you have all been to at least one.  I have an Uncle who (allegedy) only eats at buffetts claiming they are the only place with enough food for your dollar.  Hmmmm.  I suppose the post food poisioning and medical bills after consumption of said buffett are included in that "bang for your buck" theory. 

With increasing age, I am aquiring an unnatural fear of germs.  I wouldn't call it a full out time to get medicated for OCD fear. My unnatural fears extend mostly to waterparks, public pools, anywhere where large amounts of children (walking little petri dishes) reside (playgroups, my sons first grade classroom, church nursery, movei theatres, etc.), gas station bathrooms (still have anxiety ridden nightsweat nightmares about the last gas station bathroom attack of the toilet hose debacle), hotel glasses/bedspreads, and the like.  To be honest, as I am sitting here writing this, I think I might be a little OCD germaphobic.  I just think things are gross.  I also have a bit of an addiction to 20/20, Dateline, etc. and I take all their healthscare news as gospel truth.  Hence the reason I don't drink soda.  Only water, bottled, somehow if feels safer that way.

I can tolerate movie theatres.  Admittedly I wrap my coat over my chair so the cooties that were obviously left by the last movei goer will hopefully be suffocated by said coat before burrowing into my scalp.  I've never had cooties, but I'm pretty sure if myself and/or my children ever got them, it would be time for me to be committed at least until my house was fumigated and my children boiled.  I can "hold it" for an inoridnate amount of time if a gas station bathroom is my only option.  I bring hand sanitizer to rub liberally all over my children and any other child that gets close to me or my child at other locales.  Public pools.  Unlike Nike, I DON'T DO IT.  Gross.  There are lines, and some must not be crossed.  I even successfully avoided going in a lake next to our house in New Hampshrire for three years when I saw a diaper laying haphazardly on half water/half beach one day.  That was the end of the dips in the lake

With full knowledge of my germaphobic OCD, you would THINK my husband could clue in that the last, and I mean LAST place I would ever want to consume food would be a public buffett for hell's sake.  My face turns green and my stomache immediately churns when he and the boys insist on IHOP.  I feel dirty the whole time I am there, and no, watching my husband shove slimy "stuffed french toast" down his throat does not help.  I watch 20/20.  You don't KNOW what that crap is stuffed with, you just never know.

The other morning, Jon suggests we all go to breakfast.  I have successfully avoided IHOP and greasy spoon cafe centrals for other options here in Colorado (admittedly where the granola loving, clean living, mother nature worshiping crowd hangs out) that are actually delicious and don't leave me feeling dirty.  Jon hates them.  All of them. He insists, like my Uncle, that he pays twice the price, and still leaves hungry.  I suppose a delectable dish entitled "GRAND SLAM!" is more his style as it slams into his arteries, sliding down into the chambers of his heart, slowing the arterial flow, and slamming him into the cardiac unit.  They serve fresh fruit at my breakfast locales.  Jon and the boys sit and stare at it like someone has placed an alien lifeform in front of them.  Caden, my little 2 year-old, will happily chaw down on the fruit ... until a pancake with shipped cream and chocolae chips is served.  Goodbye fruit.

So, back to Jon and his breakfast idea.  Here's the conversation, "how about the Waffle House?"  "Uh, no, vomit, Jon it's by the freaking side of the highway and the parking lot is filled with 18 wheelers!"  "Village Inn?"  "Sick, gross, no." "McDonalds?" "I thought we were going OUT to breakfast?"  "I don't know Cort, you hate everything!"  "No, I like La Peep, The Egg and I, Dicken's Tavern ..."  In unison now, all of my boys (even Caden), "DISGUSTING!!!!!!" (Caden said, "gwosss!!!!")  As we're driving down the road, contemplating our familial breakfast dilema of grease versus quality, fresh versus packaged, my fresh hell opens it's gaping jaws as Jon declares, "boys, look, an OLD COUNTRY BUFFET ... and they have BREAKFAST!!!"

Old Country Buffet .... Longmont, CO.  I have been to one other Old Country Buffet in my lifetime.  We lived in Maryland, it was amongst friends, and I was 25 ... my OCD had not yet set in to it's disproportionate abject terror of all things germs YET; but I was still grossed out.  There was a time in New Hampshire where I was coerced into going to some other buffet called the Red Apple (I think). There was nothing there to do with apples, some wierd chinese, american, mexican dishes and some in between the united nations buffet tour (the worst sort of buffet).  However, again, amongst friends so the panic was minimal as I carefully selected items least likely contaminated by the kitchen staff and/or sneezed on, touched, or generally discombobulated in any way by my fellow buffet officianados. 

Jon and the boys rememeber buffets with the fondest of memories.  All the food you can eat, followed by even more gluttony (isn't that one of the seven deadly sins?) of greasy fried glories, ice cream bars, desserts of every imaginable kind, followed by heartburn and the "potions" as my little sister would call them.  Come to your own conclusions about the "potions".  Our particular Old Country Buffet is in the mall.  Yes, I did say the Mall.  And not any Mall ... it's the Mall sporting about four stores that has officially been deemed "blighted" by the city of Longmont.  Blighted, loosely translated, means it's a piece of crap that needs to be blown up and started over. Jon pulled into the parking lot of that blighted mall, tires screeching, and I am prettu sure up on two wheels, the boys whooting and hollering like rednecks hunting coon screaming "sumbitch" we're going to the buffet!

I walked slowly through the parking lot following my skipping and hollering in delight children feeling like a prison camp victim headed to my certain death.  After entering said "blighted" mall, there in a larger than normal sign was posted "breakfast until 11, only $4.99!  Jon looked at his watch, 10:45.  "Look at that honey!  We're here at the end of the breakfast, beginning of the lunch change!"  Holy crap.  The best part of this whole situation ... there was a line waiting for their $4.99 breakfast lunch change deal to become the reality of their lifeitme dreams. This event, NOT on the bucket list.

As we got into line I said to Jon, "you know how I hate public pools?  this is worse, waaaaay worse."  I decided to spend my time in the line, leering.  Leering is this nasty habit I have had forever that I didn't even know I did.  It is uncontrollable, my sister made me aware of it in Junior High while sitting in the mall one dat.  The mall, of course, is the best people watching on the planet. Apparently I am uncapable of not staring at said interesting characters without my face uncontrollably distorting itself into disgust and horror.  My sister calls it "leering" and often would jab my side and whisper in the "death tone", "cort, STOP LEERING!"  How could I NOT leer at this line, this crowd, the people leaving the buffet as we waited?  This was a leering hot bed.

First, there were your seniors.  And by seniors, I don't mean high school.  I mean the blue haired newly coifed seniors toddling along their way through the buffet.  AND, wait for it ... there was even a rascal in the mix. A RASCAL for hell's sake.  How in the hell does an individual convince themselves that in the mad rush that is a buffet a rascal is ever appropriate.  She even beeped her rascal horn at me.  I didn't know they had horns on them ... until this day.  So, back to the line ... we finally get to the head of the line to pay and Jon announces three adults, one child, and one freebie.  Drew is standing next to Jon, I am leering, Caden is yelling at me, "peeeeeeeese noooooooow!" for a gumball from the machine, and Bradyn is hanging off my leg asking if they will have sausage AND bacon?  The lady thanks Jon profusely for his "honesty" in telling her Drew was 12.  Then announces, "you know, he could have easily passed for 10 and you could have lied to me, thank you for your integrity."  Drew, who is a little sensitive that his growth spurt has not quite caught up to that of his peers ... was now also leering in disgust at this most vicious of insults. 

Because of Jon's generous moment of integrity, the lady whispers to Jon (as if this was covert information she was sharing), " ... you know, since it's almost 11, you guys are really lucky because they are putting away the breakfast buffet and bringing out the lunch buffet items!"  Jon looked at me grinning from ear to ear.  "Did you hear that honey??!  We will get the fresh stuff for lunch!!"  "And the old as hell stuff for breakfast," I replied.  Then, and only then, when I thought things could not get any worse, I see a fellow buffet attendee sporting a t-shirt I might never forget.  The lady was 5x5, as my brother in law would say.  Again, come to your own conclusion about her body type.  Her t-shirt was white and at a distant glance looked like it had a giant Mountain Dew logo on the front.  As she edged closer I noticed the writing.  It did NOT say Mountain Dew.  Oh no, it said, horror of horrors, "Mount me and do me". 

Drew could not control himself, and in his louder than normal 12 year-old voice screams in laughter, "mom, mom, look, look, NO ONE would mount her, much less DO her!"  Okay, I have to admit, it was one of those parenting moments where you have to look away because what he said was so damned funny, but as a parent you also know that you should be scolding him for such a trashy comment.  I was in the Old Country Buffet.  As if ANYTHING he said would offend any of the rednecks I  was leering at ... I let the comment go, and tried like hell to get my cell phone out fast enough to take a picutre of her shirt. Alas, I failed.  Much like hunting the mullet in it's native habitat, my quick draw to the cell phone camera was in vain.

When I was SURE nothing could get worse, the manager/host comes out of nowhere and says to Jon, "how many?!"  I was pretty sure this guy was on crack ... okay not pretty sure, I was sure.  He proclaimed to Jon and I, "wow, wow, it's early in the morning (11 am, really, does the crack affect your internal time clock?) and I haven't even had my morning coffee (I think that is code for crack at Old Country Buffet)!"  He is squeeling this at about 90 mph and I am leering at him.  Jon says, "4 and a high chair".  And when I think my public shame can reach no higher level he screams at the top of his voice, into the microphone, "hey, 4 and a high chair!!!"  Why didn't he scream this for anyone else in line?  Why were we so "special"?  Of course, everyone in the buffet looks at us.

Crack man is pointing like a wild man at his "staff" and finally leads us to a table in the corner ... so lucky, a Jon would exclaim, CLOSE to the buffet!  Crap.  The buffet, like any other buffet, was a disgusting display of gluttony, grease, and general nasty.  I tried like hell to find anything that looked "okay", there was nothing.  I don't care HOW many noseguards you put up ... people are reaching their nasty paws in one by one, touching the spoons to scoop out their piles of lard onto their plate.  Lard being cleverely disguised as "mac and cheese".  I didn't know these people, and it would be wierd for me to stand at the front of each line offering hand sanitizer.  Which, come to think of it, should be a required practrice at any buffet establisment.  Including and not limited to employees standing outside buffet bathrooms sanitizing people as they leave the bathroom.  I digress.  As promised, the breakfast items were slowly being carted out and replaced by lunch items.  I made a plate for Caden, then tried to make a plate for myself.  Couldn't do it.  Just couldn't do it.  The boys were in HEAVEN, going back and forth and back and forth and Drew finally announces, "mom, WHY are you not eating, I mean, this is like heaven, all the food you can eat, you don't even have to finish everything, and you can keep going back again and again!"  Jon was across the table masticating his recently aquired larger than lifee piece of "hand carved" roast squeeling in delight at the deliciousness I had to partake.  I took one bite, swallowed, and was sure I would be in the ER later that afternoon. 

I spent the time in the buffet leering.  It didn't take a rocket scientist to ascertain that there was not ONE person in there that was thin or oven moderately healthy.  In a state, Colorado, that I have determined is the thinnest, healthiest population I have ever seen I came to the realization that this place, the Old Country Buffet, had to be the shame of shames the Weight Watchers dieters came to weekly meetings about and "confessed" their sins to all. 

When Jon announced it was time to go home, Drew said, "what, we're leaving?"  I said, "no Drew, we're staying here, all day, until we get hungry again so we can fill more plates you won't finish."  I was done.  The boys announced as we left, "Dad can we come here EVERY Saturday?!?!"  All I could muster was ... "this is soooo going in my blog."