Mmm...Mmm...GOOD

I know its been a few days since i posted, but i was off. So, no butt at work, no post on blog..simple as that.

Ok

Here we go...

I am not happy this morning.

Why?

I have never been a 'coffee drinker'. I usually get a cup in the morning just because i don't want to get a glass of water (which we all should have more often). I admit, the coffee is pretty good, with the right combination of cream and sugar....until today.

WHO IN THE HELL MADE THIS!?!?!?!

Hot...brown...water

I guess who ever made this gutter juice, didn't realize he was making something the whole company would drink.

Bitching about the coffee to a friend of mine has led me to write about something i have thought about for years, ever since joining corporate America.

Do you trust your coworkers enough to have them provide you with nourishment????

At a previous employer, we constantly would have 'pot-lucks'. For those of you that don't know what that is, your department or section of fellow employees decide to bring in whatever concoction they specialize in and feed it to everyone.

Sounds like a nice, bonding, team-building exercise, right??

Well...

What always happened with the pot-lucks i was apart of was, everyone wanted to know who made what, because that determined the contents of your plate. The conversation usually goes like this...

"Is that Miss Tina's potato salad"

"Yeah...and its good"

"I'll try some.....Who made those meatballs???"

" I think Chris bought those"

"Chris from Accounting??"

"Yeah"

"Hell no...he probably didn't wash his hands"

Now some folks may just dive-in and sample everything, which is really what a 'pot-luck' is all about, but not me, and i have my wife to blame for that.

Before meeting her, i would eat anything from anybody. But she put the idea of "do they wash their hands", "do they have pets that jump up on the counter while they are cooking" idea in my head.

After hearing that over and over, I walk in to whatever conference room that contains the food and i get the shakes. I cant do it.

Picture this:

Bob in the AR department has a cat. While Bob is making his 'famous' cheesecake, Mr.Bibbles jumps up on the counter top to see what Bob is doing, which Mr. Bibbles does every night while Bob cooks. Bob pets Mr. Bibbles and Mr. Bibbles purrs at the affection. Now does Bob wash his hands after petting Mr. Bibbles??? Nope..he goes right back into his famous cheesecake..mixing away. In the meantime, Mr. Bibbles goes back outside to finish eating the rat he caught in the gutter.

So the next day, at the company gathering, you slice into Bob's famous cheesecake which, unbeknown to you contains, Bob's finger fungus, Mr. Bibble-fur, and dead-rat blood.

YUMMY!!!!!

Now that may be extreme, but that's what I think about when I look at the food for pot-lucks.

AND THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING ABOUT POT-LUCKS???????

Homemade food??? No

Flat sodas??? No

Getting there late and Miss Tina's potato salad all gone??? Not quite

The worst thing (In my opinion) is .......

BAGS OF POTATO CHIPS

Huh???

But potato chips are sealed in a bag, made in a factory somewhere in Idaho.

All that is true, but guess what...

When Cheesecake Bob opens the bag and Susan with the dirty fingernails, or Chuck who walks, non-stop from the bathroom stall/urinal straight back to his desk (minus the stop at the sink), or Cathy with the chronic cough, sticks their disease-infested fingers in that bag of chips......

They may as well spit in your mouth

I could never understand why folks stick their hands in potato chip bags. They probably wont touch ALL the chips, but they are certainly touching more than what they grab to put on their plates. GROSS!!!

Whether you washed your hands or not, I don't want to eat a chip that touched your fingers. You may have rubbed your nose (or picked it for that matter), scratched your head, or even sneezed into your hand. Now all of that is in there with my portion of Bar-B-Que Lays.

People,

When you are getting chips, pick up the bag, and POUR your chips on your plate. That's just common courtesy.

I hate to walk into a setting like that and see chips in a bowl or the bag already opened, cuz I KNOW somebody's pet cat's fur is laying on top of my Sour Cream & Onion Ruffles (notice the shout-out to my favorite chips!!!)

Now, some may say i am paranoid, but don't get me wrong, i am not one of these germaphobes. I don't have Mysophobia (look it up ). I strongly believe that you must keep your immune system in fighting shape by introducing new enemies to it, but i am not eating Mr. Bibbles catch-o-the-day on top of my cheesecake. Dammit, i like cheesecake, but if i have order it from Junior's to ensure that there are no droppings from your uncaged bird, or your daughter wanting to help and dropping egg shells in it, then I am going to junior's.

All i am saying about pot-lucks (didn't this start with coffee?!?!) is, if you are feeding others, exercise more caution. Be considerate of others and make sure that your dish can pass a health inspection.

Dont be like Holy Moly's Donut Shop!!!

...but i could be wrong