--We went to the Old Country Buffet for dinner last night.The Secrets hate it, and Toney’s not far behind them, so we
rarely set foot in the place.But
they mailed us some coupons, for kids eat free, and I talked everyone into
it.
Yeah, it wasn’t very good.They
were serving “steak,” which looked like an old baseball glove on a
cutting board.The woman at the
carving station
would slice you off a finger, and drop it on your plate… and I just
couldn’t do it.I saw her
fishing meat from a vat of murky water, located inside the bar itself,
and decided to go semi-veg for the meal.
The oldest Secret tried the water-steak, though, and said it was
pretty good.I asked if there
was a Willie Mays autograph on it, but he didn’t know what in the
everlovin’ hell I was talking about.
I ended up eating a towering salad, some kind of chicken and noodles
deal (very salty, therefore good), a bunch of the canned vegetables
they serve, and a half-dozen yeast rolls.Everything I ate reminded me of the high school cafeteria.And I don’t mean that as a compliment.
I was packed taut when we left there, but was surprised to realize I
was hungry two hours later.And
that seems to happen whenever I eat at a buffet.Wonder why?Why does a
proper meal, served on a plate (as opposed to the slop trough), stay
with you longer?Any ideas?
The food was mediocre, at best, but it was our fellow diners who
really stole the show...
As far as I can tell, there’s not an abnormally large population of
scary white trash in this area, but the ones who are here seem to
congregate at the OCB.That
joint is a trash
magnet, straight-up.
When we entered there was a couple sitting near the front door, both
enormous, sweating, and shoveling food into their heads with forks
held like tennis rackets.In
fact, they probably wished they had
tennis rackets, or a boat oar, so as to transfer more food per swipe.
The man was so fat he had to sit a great distance from the table, and
could barely reach his plate.He
was forced to fully extend his arms, like a sleepwalker on TV, and I
just couldn’t stop watching those two puddins at work.I bet they’re both still picking hunks of fried chicken out
of their neck folds…
Seated near our table was some snaggle-toothed "honey," with
three or four buzzcut children, and an old black man.Kind of a strange configuration, but whatever.
The woman was constantly yelling at her hicklets, just screaming
across the restaurant like nobody else was there.And when she chewed, her entire face collapsed on itself.
It was an amazing thing to behold; her chin would almost literally go
above her nose, and her mouth went horizontal.I don’t know if she was missing all her top teeth, her entire
upper palate, or what.But the
size of her head varied greatly, depending on where she happened to be
in the chew-stroke.
One of her buzzcut gorgelings, who looked a lot like the kid in the
cap here, was eating barbecue ribs like a Popsicle.He held it straight up and down, and went to gnawin’.He had sauce all over his face, and Big Mama with the
Collapsing Head screamed at him to quit being such a damn pig -- in the process spraying macaroni and cheese all over her
son, and Fred Sanford seated beside him.
There was also a smattering of the retarded in there, one wearing a
crash helmet.Years ago I saw a
“challenged” girl at a similar buffet, standing at the food bar
and eating straight off a slotted spoon.I hate to profile, but I’m always a little on-edge when the
short bus is parked outside a serve-yourself restaurant.
Yes, it was quite a collection last night.But one woman went above and beyond…
She was old, like Granny Clampett old.At least that’s what I’d guess, but I’m not sure I’m
adequately equipped to judge the age of something that rough.She might’ve been 45, for all I know.I just don’t have enough experience with such a high level
of hag.
She was wearing a faded Harley-Davidson t-shirt, cut so it looked like
the bottom was fringe.Know
what I mean?It was a homemade
job, and her starchy-white stomach flab was exposed to the elements.Within the shirt it looked like two squashes, or something from
the gourd family, were banging around.
I tried to get a picture with my cell phone, but her husband(?) looked
like the type who keeps a razor-sharp knife in his boot.So I decided I’d better watch myself; I didn’t want to go
out on the floor of a kids-eat-free buffet, people stepping over my
still-twitching corpse to get to the taco bar.
And, of course, there were people in there cutting loose with
terrifying deep-lung coughs, like something in a TB sanitarium.
And seated behind Toney were two girls who were pressing hard against
the insides of their radically distressed stretch pants, with some
zitty teenage boy in a wife-beater, absentmindedly twirling his armpit
hair round and round his right pointer finger.Blecch.
One of the chunky girls ate with her mouth wide open, and her tongue
kept darting out, like a frog’s.And
it was always covered with whatever she was eating, partially-chewed.At one point it looked like she’d just polished off a tumbler
of ranch dressing.
Man, it was all I could do to choke down my sixth dinner roll…
So yeah, it wasn’t very good.And,
as is the tradition, we vowed never to return.That’s what I’ll say next time as well, because it’s what
I do.
I was going to write about a bunch of other stuff today, but spent too
long monkeying with the new Thursday Themes page.I think I wrote four different intros, and I’m still not
satisfied.Oh well.
My Question of the Day is based loosely on the sideshow-sized people
we saw at the Old Country Buffet, as well as the carny-style patrons.It’s very simple, really:do
you have any stories to tell about those traveling carnivals that come
around every summer, and set up in vacant lots or outside K-Marts, or
whatever?
I have a couple from my youngling days, but I’ll post them in the
comments later.It’s almost
feeding time here at the Compound, and I need to get this thing
completed.
