Tuesday, March 15, 2011

When You Should Learn To Read The Signs And Call It Quits

Alternative Title (and the one I tend to follow):

When You See The Signs
But Choose To Continue On And Enjoy The Ride
(And Then Complain About It To Your Blog Peeps!)

This past weekend, Vol Fan and I decided to take a little camping trip to Joshua Tree National Park. 

We had planned to depart on Friday afternoon.  But work got in the way...by the time we were finished with work and packed, we would have been perfectly timed to hit the worst interstate junction at quite possibly the worst time imaginable - The Los Angeles interchange of the 101 and the 405 at rush hour(s) on a Friday!  No thank you.  So we decided to leave early Saturday morning.

When Saturday morning rolled around, we had our camping supplies packed and were headed to IHOP for a quick breakfast.  As we ate our meal, there was an automobile accident at the intersection by our window.  We ate and watched as fire trucks, police, ambulances, and tow trucks snarled the traffic like crazy. 

When we were nearing the end of our meal, Vol Fan watched as a server did something unimaginable.  She approached the drink station, carrying a partial glass of water.  Obviously, she was getting a refill for another customer.  Vol Fan watched as she proceeded to dump the contents of the glass into the ice bin as she reached in with the glass to get more ice.  She then refilled the glass with water and took it back to the customer.  Yes, she had just dumped someone's backwash into the ice bin.  Yes, the very same ice bin where our drinks had been filled.

We shrugged it off - the damage was already done.  We had already consumed our drinks.  If we were contaminated, then we were just contaminated.  And we continued our meal.

A young family was in the next booth.  Mom.  Dad.  Grandma.  And Little Timmy.  Little Timmy was starting to be quite vocal and drew our attention.  As we glanced in their direction,  Little Timmy took the syrup container from the table and LICKED it!  As I gazed back at my half-eaten plate of pancakes, I thought about how Little Timmy probably wasn't the first kid to lick the syrup containers.  And I thought about how the containers are not washed between each customer, just left on the table until the end of the day.

And breakfast was over.

So we tackled the still-snarled-from-the-accident traffic and got back on the road....

(To Be Continued)

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Why do you think I never eat at IHOP...

I hope things get better!!!

Busy Bee Suz said...

Oh.NO.
My belly is churning.....
I remember hearing a story about why the IHOP waitresses were so slow....it is because of all the syrup on the floor. STICKY.


waiting for part two of this tale.

Betsy Banks Adams said...

OH those things about restaurants which we don't want to KNOW..... I'm sure the kid had a snotty, runny nose also... Yipes!!!!!! That will make you think twice before eating at the IHop for awhile, huh????? ha ha

Can't wait to hear more of this story....
Hugs,
Betsy

T said...

Ewwwwww……

(oh the stuff I learned working at a chop shop!)

Susan said...

I'm on pins and needles hoping that the rest of your trip got better?! It was a gorgeous weekend for camping.

The Good Eater said...

What doesn't kill us can only make us stronger?

Mental P Mama said...

gah

Tammy said...

I'm going to say the same things as MPM only bigger.... GAH!