Senseless Banter...

martha wrote:http://boredomtherapy.com/cool-test/

Please don't post what your answers were. But I would love to know if you were in the 98%, or the 2%. Or, in my case, the 99%? Because one of my answers agreed, the other didn't.

I'm a 99 pecenter as well , martha. I guess we are only half odd.

What did I miss?  I only have one answer: red drill. I guess I could always beat a nail in with a drill.

martha wrote:http://boredomtherapy.com/cool-test/

Please don't post what your answers were. But I would love to know if you were in the 98%, or the 2%. Or, in my case, the 99%? Because one of my answers agreed, the other didn't.

In the 2%...not even close to the other. Not sure what the math problems had to do with it though...

sanderson wrote:What did I miss?  I only have one answer: red drill.  I guess I could always beat a nail in with a drill.

You missed the part where it says "don't post what your answers were"...


CC

I'm in the 2% as well.

Marc - what you're not hearing about is a virus that killed off literally millions of piglets last year.  And cows have been having issues for a couple of years now.  That's another reason the meat prices aren't coming back down.

But I agree w/ you...!

If pigs could fly , would bacon go up ?

plantoid wrote:If pigs could fly , would bacon go up ?

Ouch!

I heard/read that to make up for the reduced number of hogs, they were fattened up so there were more pounds to sell to make up for the number of hogs.  The resulting problem was that the holiday hams ended up being too big for the traditional spiral cut hams!  I usually trim the obvious fat off bacon for cooking but the pound bought for Christmas had so much spongy-netted fat that I ended up with just a tiny bit for the dressing.  Unintended consequences.

On a different note:  DH and I went to the salad bar for a late lunch yesterday, and we always wash our hands before getting in line.  There are 2 serving lines; the line that leads towards the restrooms was just being mopped.  On our way back to get to the start of the bar, an employee was doing the dry mopping of the mopped floor.  She signaled people to go around another way, so we did.  Ten minutes later, she comes up to our little table and gives us a bag of a dozen site-baked chocolate chip cookies as a thank you.  Apparently, we were the only ones that heeded her request.  The little thank you was courtesy of the buffet.  I don't know if she told the manager or we were caught on security cameras, but we thought that was the nicest thing to do for a customer.

Well, THAT was nice, Sanderson! 

It's amazing how inconsiderate folks can be.  I hated working food service - especially the after-church crowd on Sundays who would leave all sorts of trash on/around their tables and not control their kids.

That's very cool, sanderson.

I'm kinda disgusted by a lot of the family restaurant crowd too. The screeching and banging and running, the spilling and refusing to clean it up, the relentless kicking the booths, the whining and gross noises ... and that's just the adults!

Marc, LOL!

But seriously folks, that is why I enjoyed having a restaurant that didn't own high chairs. The kids that came to our restaurant were very welcome - including a few that brought their own high chairs. But nobody mistook us for a family restaurant.

There were 4 occasions in  6 ½ years that I had to say something to parents. The most notable time was a little kid popping out from behind a table to run full tilt across the dining room. She was too little to know better, but she easily could have hurt herself or a server. The first time she did it, I assume the parents would take charge. The third time she did, it was enough.

When I said something to the parents, you would have thought I told them their kid was ugly. Could they really not see the likelihood of the girl not being seen, and having a tray of dishes dropped on her head? We never saw them again. Not surprised, not sad.

Now, for those of you who know think I am cruel and heartless, there was an occasion when a family had a New Year's Eve reservation - early - and brought their twin babies - maybe about a year old? New Year's Eve at our restaurant was a big deal. The only noise the babies made were happy cooing noises. Not even screeches, just cooing. A nearby, but out of sight, table was bitching up a storm about people bringing babies out to a restaurant. Guess who I never went over to talk to all night? 

And I did take the reservation knowing there were babies. I also knew the parents and grandparents would all take turns taking the babies out if need be. 

Phew. Sorry! You guys touched a nerve!

martha wrote:
When I said something to the parents, you would have thought I told them their kid was ugly. Could they really not see the likelihood of the girl not being seen, and having a tray of dishes dropped on her head? We never saw them again. Not surprised, not sad.

The parents probably assumed any comment at all was an implicit attack on them, and one that could never be worth listening to and considering but only fought back against. I don't know what it is that makes people feel they should be immune from any comment or criticism, no matter how reasonable, or that they should respond to it with horror or by fighting, but it's an odd world we live in, and that sort of way of looking at and responding to the world at large seems to be common and accepted in the culture now. Among young and old alike.

Nodding in agreement.

Sorry, Martha.  Didn't mean to start a firestorm...

Just fyi - for those of you who like to eat at Cracker Barrel - the servers/managers are NOT ALLOWED to say anything to parents of screaming/running/disruptive children.  They were sued once and lost.  So it's up to us as customers to talk to the parents ourselves.

Ha Ha Family restaurants ..UK style ....

A few years ago I was sat on my own in one of the UK's Pizza hut slop joints in Birmingham , killing time for an appointment two hours hence , where 14 or so hormonal hyper teens & pre teen females 11 to 16  were  on a group solo outing ,  having been dumped by their parents for a party with no adults present.


 What a scene ,... like feeding time at the ape cages ...noisy as hell but fun , laughter and smiles , but I've heard & seen much worse from adults many a time .

To my right there was a couple in their early thirties with two very well behaved skinny  prim & proper kids about 7 & 8 yrs old.

 The man was a weedy guy, the sort who is always dressed by is wife for his wife as a statement of her good taste & class ( very debatable as he's a clone to be found all over the world ).

 She started bitching and itching  in the direction of these kids & started going verbal about them . " The manager should do something about them "  Their manners are disgusting " ,"  Look ,just look at them " she whined at her "  Man ".

Her bleating rose in  ever increasing crescendo's , she started getting twitchy eyed as well . Of course the kids ( aka .monsters ) played up to her and got even more outrageous putting on airs & graces to mimic her to each other which resulted in even more peals of laughter and giggles .

 After a few minutes of getting my ear hole full of her I got a bit miffed to say the least .
 So I looked her in the eye and said ,"  Madam If you don't like it leave or else just shut up for the manager ain't going to stop them   because he's going to get get about £250 (approx $ 350 USD ) now & every time their friends decide to come here for a great party .
your paltry £ 16 for a single pizza and a diet coke each won't do a thing , as he throws more food away than that that every hour " . 
 
Man O Man ..  she went purple , real twitchy & even more swivel eyed , I thought she was going to stab me with her  fork or turn me into a frog or similar .  Instead she stood up and made a quick exit , the noise volume of the kids then increased several fold ..

As her hubby paid the bill he winked & said to me , " Thanks mate,  I've been wanting to say that to her for the last 8 years ) .

Plantoid, Hilarious story!

Martha, Nice to hear about parents and grandparents who take responsibility for their young children behavior.

Another little story from me. Eons ago, a boyfriend and I went to Perkos with my 3 kids and his 1. Ages were 2, 3, 4, & 6. Near the end of dinner, the waitress brought 4 little pudding or ice cream desserts over and said, "Complements of that couple for such nicely behaved kids." The couple were grandparent age. And, here we spent half the dinner saying "sit up" "stop playing with your food" "shhhh" "stop whining." We were half exhausted. All in the perception of the viewer so it was worth it.

Surviving Whole Foods.  Funny write-up:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-maclean/surviving-whole-foods_b_3895583.html

sanderson wrote:Plantoid, Hilarious story!

Martha, Nice to hear about parents and grandparents who take responsibility for their young children behavior.

Another little story from me. Eons ago, a boyfriend and I went to Perkos with my 3 kids and his 1. Ages were 2, 3, 4, & 6. Near the end of dinner, the waitress brought 4 little pudding or ice cream desserts over and said, "Complements of that couple for such nicely behaved kids." The couple were grandparent age. And, here we spent half the dinner saying "sit up" "stop playing with your food" "shhhh" "stop whining." We were half exhausted. All in the perception of the viewer so it was worth it.

That's a parent's job, though. Nice that you took the trouble to have the courtesy to others that you kept your kids under control. And even though it's looking at things in the very long run, perhaps, it's a great courtesy to kids to teach them how to behave. They need to know, and it's knowledge they can use all their lives.

Heck, I remember some kids getting pretty humiliated by other kids in elementary school, sometimes punched too, because they thought they could act around the other kids the way they probably acted at home. Sorry, buster ... the rest of the world is just not having it! Even seen college kids encounter pretty much the same situation. Completely out of their depth in the world because they'd been so pampered and sheltered from it. Nobody ever taught them how to get along so they probably thought they already knew. Wrong. The older you are, the harder it gets to learn such things without having it be traumatic. Much better to learn young, from people who love you and would never really hurt you, than when older and from people who don't give a darn about you and might just enjoy hurting you.

sanderson wrote:Surviving Whole Foods.  Funny write-up:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-maclean/surviving-whole-foods_b_3895583.html

That was pretty good. Great opening and ending.

Marc Iverson wrote:The older you are, the harder it gets to learn such things without having it be traumatic.  Much better to learn young, from people who love you and would never really hurt you, than when older and from people who don't give a darn about you and might just enjoy hurting you.

Very well said.

Eons ago my husband declared that we not going to those kind of "family" restaurants as  he declared the noise level was conducive to getting in and out -- especially out.  Especially loved yours Plantoid where the husband was so glad you spoke up to the b****h.  Bravo!!

Tonight on PBS and most probably soon available on video.
http://www.pbs.org/program/queens-garden/

camprn wrote:Tonight on PBS and most probably soon available on video.
http://www.pbs.org/program/queens-garden/

I missed it but....
The Queen's Garden re-airs Thursday, January 15, 2015.

CC, thank you. I also missed it.

CapeCoddess wrote:

camprn wrote:Tonight on PBS and most probably soon available on video.
http://www.pbs.org/program/queens-garden/

I missed it but....
The Queen's Garden re-airs Thursday, January 15, 2015.

Thanks camprn and CapeCoddess~  Watched preview from camprn's link, set DVR and looking forward to it almost as much as I am looking forward to next episode Downton Abbey.