Public Food

Back in the days of working at The Benz, management would pretty often show appreciation for their employees. Sometimes it was a big event like Truck Day or the Tiki Party. And other times it was smaller things like rewarding middle-of-the-week Casual Days, Employee of the Month, or just bringing in food for everyone. The Benz was my first "real" job and looking back on it, it occurs to me that I've never since worked at a place that did so much to make it known that we were respected and appreciated. I miss that job a lot. But back to my main topic...

On a particularly hot summer day, the bosses got together and decided to buy ice cream for everyone. Now, there were at least a few hundred people in our office, so it wasn't like a few pints of Ben & Jerry's was gonna cut it. They bought giant vats of ice cream. Like when you go to Baskin Robbins and they are scooping your ice cream out of a 20 gallon container. It was like those.

An announcement was made over the P.A. system, and most people were jumping out of their chairs, running for the break room to be first in line for some ice cream. I however, remained calmly seated and kept working. My friends in the desks surrounding me all got up and said, "Come on Lauren. Let's go get our ice cream!"

Me: No thanks.

Friends: You don't want any?

Me: No. I'm not interested.

Friends (confused): But...you love ice cream.

Me: Yeah. But...that's public ice cream.

Friends: Public?

Me: Yeah. Like, it's out in the open. People are breathing and sneezing and coughing all over it. And it's probably melting which is just a haven for bacteria.

Friends: I think you're exaggerating...

Me: Well, you guys go enjoy it then. I'm fine.

So my "phobia" was out in the open and, kind of surprisingly, it's something that lots of people don't seem to understand. I'm not sure what's difficult about the concept of not wanting to eat germ-ridden food, but most people seem to think that I'm overexagerating. Maybe I can more clearly explain my worries to you:

1. Buffets: Although it didn't occur to me during my recent Chattanooga trip that I was voluntarily eating at the Indian lunch buffet until my husband pointed it out to me that night...and I ate at the hotel restaurant breakfast buffet twice...it's usually not my practice to eat at buffets. I'm not at all confident in a sneeze-guard's ability to do a successful job 100% of the time.

One time some friends dragged me to Old Country Buffet, and I paid to get in but didn't eat a thing. I just sat there watching everyone else eat, while being made fun of by my friends for not eating. But while one of my buddies was eating ribs, he kept licking the BBQ sauce off his fingers after every bite. He then went to get seconds, came back to the table and started his finger-licking again. He stopped mid-lick, looked at me, and asked, "It's things like this that make you not eat at buffets, isn't it?" Yes, that is correct.

2. Communal food: When people bring in food to work, there are so many hands in the cookie jar, and I've seen quite a number of people walk out of the bathroom without washing their hands, or just running them under the water for 2 seconds for my benefit. So I'm really not interested in eating things that other people's dirty hands have been touching.

There was an incident that a coworker told me about, when a tray of salad had been left in the breakroom. My buddy was taking some, and then he stood there and ate it while the next guy in line was taking some salad and talking to my friend. Turns out this other guy was a spitter. My buddy told me that the entire time they were talking, there was spatter coming out of this guy's mouth and landing right on that salad. Inadvertently...yes, but regardless, that salad was now dressed in spit. Gross.

And I just witnessed another such event a few minutes ago...

Our building management brought in a giant tub of popcorn for everyone on our floor to share, and put it on a table in the break room. I just went in there to microwave my lunch and there was a guy in there scooping popcorn up onto a small paper plate. He stood there while he ate it, fingers touching his lips to get the snack into his mouth, and then those now-moist fingertips going back to his plate for more. After a few minutes of cramming his face, he decided he was full, but there was still popcorn on his plate. He dumped the leftovers back into the tin, shut the lid, put that paper plate on top of the lid, and walked away. I looked at the plate that he'd left behind; it turns out someone had written on the plate "Scooper," which in itself seems unsanitary to write on a food scooping device, but then I was way more horrified to see that he'd been eating off of the communal scoop.WTF?!

Let me clarify that I'm not totally ignorant. I'm very aware that I have no clue what's happening to my food in the kitchen of a restaurant when I place an order, or in a food manufacturing plant while it's being processed and packaged. There is clearly no way to get around the fact that all food is touched by people at some point in it's making. But at least in a kitchen or manufacturing plant, there are handling standards in place. Not that those standards are always upheld, but it's at least a better gamble than the communal scooper.

So instead of thinking that I'm a crazy, next time you're about to eat some public food, just think about all the people who may have double-dipped those chips.