Last weekend I cleaned my home office again, aka the Surf Report Bunker. It is, quite literally, a walk-in closet. In fact, the bar is still in there. I’d say it’s roughly 8 ft x 10 ft, and painted babyshit green. And it attracts mountains of crap like a mountain of crap magnet.
Yeah, and when I say I cleaned it, I mean it looks great inside the office itself. It’s all dusted and vacuumed and lookin’ spiffy. Check it out. But all the excess stuff has only been moved to the fambly room. The problem hasn’t really been dealt with, just shifted to a new location.
And Toney has informed me I’ll be working on the knee-high mound over the coming weekend, and doing something with it. Will somebody please hold me?
One of the items in the pile is a large box of regular old light bulbs, like we used in 1975. I have two lamps in the bunker, and it seems like one of the bulbs blow on a monthly basis. And when I go to the shelf where the replacements should be, all I find are those pussified eco-twists, shaped like a Dairy Queen novelty treat.
So, a few days ago I flew off the handle and went in search of normal-people light bulbs. Those pork rind deals are fine for the rest of the house, but I’m not having them inside my sanctuary. This is 2009 — we should no longer have to wait for things to “warm up.” Know what I’m saying?
A few months ago I told you about a pair of New Balance shoes I’d purchased, for the ridiculous price of $75. Well, I’ve just started wearing them. I put off the debut, because the whole world was covered in road salt, meant to melt snow. And that stuff is like acid, it’ll eat the soles clean off your shoes if you’re not careful.
But now I’m wearing them, and apparently my feet aren’t accustomed to quality. ‘Cause it feels like the little bones are all rubbing together, and the big ones too. Also, my toe knuckles feel inflamed.
I was in Wendy’s a few days ago (I can make that statement at any time whatsoever), and there was a long hair on my hamburger. After I took a bite, and pulled the food away from my face, something remained attached. It wasn’t moving as easily as it should’ve; there was a bit of resistance.
Turns out there was a long blond hair mixed in amongst the condiments. I removed it, tossed it aside, and continued eating.
For some reason hair in my food doesn’t disgust me as much as it probably should. Lots of things set me off, and cause me to lose my mind, but that’s not really one of them. I saw the girl making the burgers, and she looked like a well-scrubbed high schooler. How nasty could her hair be?
Now if she’d put a pickle slice on there, it would’ve been a different story…
I know a lot of people almost vomit when something like that happens to them. Are you one of them? Oh, I’d probably have a different reaction if the burger-maker had been some homemade-tattoo lazy-eye home-arrest loser, but under the circumstances it was no big deal. How would you have reacted?
Also, what’s the most unusual or nastiest thing you’ve ever found in restaurant food? I was at a Cajun place in Atlanta years ago, and found a big ol’ boll weevil (or somesuch) in my jambalaya. I showed it to the waitress, and she acted like I was trying to scam them, like I walk around with a pocketful of bugs getting free meals from restaurateurs.
Do you have anything on this subject? If so, please tell us about it.
And I’m going to cut this one a little short. I overslept this morning, then spent several hours trying to figure out what happened to the long-sleeve shirts I mailed on March 14. Three people emailed and said they haven’t received them. It was making my right hand rocket through my hair.
I checked my detailed notes and they showed all shirts had shipped, but the cities didn’t appear on the long-ass receipt from the post office. WTS??
I drove over to Olyphant and checked the PO Box. And there were NINE returned packages. Nine! All had apparently gotten through with no postage whatsoever, and came back. I’d handed-off everything to postal people, they processed them, and told me the total at the end. So THEY missed the nine packages, not me.
In any case, mystery solved. I’ll re-mail the shirts tomorrow, and we’ll try it again. Sorry about that. I had no idea there was a problem until yesterday. I appreciate your patience.
And that’s gonna do it for the week.
I’ll see you guys on Monday.
One year in college I lived in housing that had a convenience store right around the corner. A few slices into a loaf of bread I got there, I noticed a small hole in a piece of the bread. The next slice had a slightly larger hole, the next a slightly larger hole and so on for five or so pieces. After the last piece with a hole in it, there was a small note with the words “Damn mice!” scrawled on it.
I’ve also had a few cockroaches in ice cubes, a piece of hard plastic and assorted hairs, which I definitely do not care for. The last hair incident was in a Mexican place a few weeks ago, only the hair was clearly my own, and there were two or three. Eww, gross, but I could live with it because it was my own. When my husband and I left I mentioned it to him, and he said, “Yeah, your hair was in my food too.” WTF?
I was once served a burger with a turkey patty in it. Shudder.
Was at a bar/restaurant in Berlin last year, waiting for our food. Went to take a sip of wine and found FOUR flies having a great time swimming around in the glass! I was given another glass on the house. When our food arrive, my friend’s lamb chops also contained quite a bit broken glass! Obviously, she didn’t have to pay.
When I was a kid, I was happily eating a jam doughnut. Halfway through, I checked what I was eating to find a wasp’s head in the jammy section. Never did work out if I’d eaten the rest of it …
I just got queasy reading about the Wendy’s hair. I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Knock on wood…nuttin but a few stray hairs. Although, it depends where they’re found…ie: on the side of the plate – tolerable; in the middle of the plate while eating – get the waiter; pulling it out of my mouth after feeling it OR (the most fearsome) yanking it out of my mouth with a “food ornament” still attached and dangling in the wind- get the barf bag…**UGHHH**.
My father was the food service director at major university when I was a little girl. So, naturally, he was a self-proclaimed food critic no matter where we went to eat. He always insisted that truck stops or “greasy-spoons” as he called them, had the best home-made food…UNTIL…while waiting for our meal during a family turnpike adventure, he witnessed the cook reach around and dig in his ass, two knuckles deep, like he just missed the tail of the gerbil……and then went about his food orders. Thought my dad was gonna have a split-down- the-middle-conniption. Dad went straight to the manager informing him that he did not appreciate the added flavor of “ass” on his food and walked out without paying a cent. That was the last “greasy-spoon” he ever went to.
while eating take out chinese food, I chomped down on a large cockroach or palmetto bug or some godawful thing, spit it out and puke and cried and puke and cried. It takes years to recover from that but you never really get over that kind of trauma. not really.
a few years later, I made a big ol’ bowl of potato salad for a potluck at work. While dishing out a portion, the hot man i always flirted with (and would marry one day) pulled out a long hair -obviously MINE – that had chunks of potato, eggs and onions, etc. strung along it like a weird necklace. One guy gagged and ran out. My man just laughed. So many jokes flying around about wanting my recipe.
After reading these posts folks, IF I EVER EAT AT A RESTAURANT AGAIN, I’ll inspect the hell out of it.
The Peanut once puked while she was on my lap as I was eating chicken fried rice. She was less than a year old and it felt like I was holding an untied waterballoon in my hand.
She mostly puked on the counter but a few tiny drops splashed on the edge of my plate.
I ate around the splashed bits after we cleaned her up.
Bunker paint color – middle-of-a-pickle green
I found a soft contact lens on my quarter pounder at McDonald’s one time. Just sitting there on top. I returned it to the counter and there were three employees on their hands and knees on the floor looking around. I just said “here ya go”. Money refunded by the manager.
Oh, and this is totally gross, but a co-worker and myself went to Wendy’s for lunch yesterday and a kid, who appeared to be around 10 years old, was sitting in a boof straight across from me just a-minin’ for gold. I mean he was knuckles deep in his nasal cavity, pulled out a good-un, observed it for a couple seconds, and then dined on the thing. I ’bout shit the condiment stand. F’n gross !!
These stories are why I hardly ever ‘eat out.’ Well, these storeis and the fact that I worked in restaurants for years and know darned good and well the horror shows that are being put on in the kitchen. The most memorable was the practice of our line cooks at Mickey D’s spitting on ‘cop burgers’ before lovingly placing that top bun…special sauce, indeed.
Hair in my food makes me want to shave every food service worked bald-headed. It’s utterly disgusting.
Rounding out this novel, the oddest thing I’ve ever found in my food is the metal ‘hanging ring’ from a ladle in a bowl of chili. Most unpleasant to bite down on. The lovely folks behind the counter at our company’s cafeteria (from whence the offending meal was purchased) simply thanked me for returning it. No apology, no nothing. I would have boycotted them, but theirs was perhaps the best chili I’ve ever eaten.
Just about anything is acceptable as breakfast food as long as you put the word “breakfast” in front of it. For example: breakfast burrito, breakfast pizza, breakfast pie……and in my case this morning: breakfast fried chicken and breakfast chocolate cake.
Just thought I’d share. Carryon.
About 30 years ago, I found a tampon in a ketchup bottle!
Just remembered a recent incident…. Shortly before Christmas, my mother and I were visiting grandma’s house, hiding out in the kitchen late one night and gorging ourselves on homemade holiday treats. My mother made a crack about the “mouse-eaten” Ziplock bag that the goodies came from and I just laughed, knowing that grandma washes and re-uses them until they disintegrate. (Hey, the woman raised 2 kids in post-war Germany. Waste not, want not, ya’ know) Anyway, as I was sugar- drunk and giggling, I looked down at the rum ball in my hand and noticed little groove marks on the outside, much too small to be from my own teeth. The look on my face must have said it all because my mother added, “Oh, you thought I was kidding about the mouse-eaten part,” just as she pops another rum ball in her mouth. My mother with the iron gut, unafraid of a few mouse germs, as I sit there wondering about bubonic plague. Never a moment of sympathy from that woman. I’m still walking the Earth, so let’s hear it for the hygiene hypothesis.
Breakfast beer.
Yep, Jason is right…perfectly acceptable.
Holy crap! I’ve never found anything in my food at a restaurant but these stories have got me wondering what in the hell I’ve ingested in the past.
The closest I’ve come is eating at a Chinese restaurant and seeing a roach come crawling up on the table. My wife screams like a banshee. The waitress says not to worry, it’s because we were sitting so close to the kitchen. WTH?
I also had a seriously screwed-up, penny-pinching co-worker who would eat spoiled food for lunch that he would get free or half-price (green KFC chicken anyone? ). He ate a bowl of instant oatmeal one time that had little live worms crawling in it. He said they were just protein. He then brought in all manner of paperwork showing how much our common food items that we buy from the grocery store have acceptable levels of insect parts, animal feces, etc. Bon apetit!
Years ago I was in the office of a co-worker and she offered me a peach from a tree in her yard. I accepted it and started to eat it while we chatted. I was just eating away, talking not paying any attention to the very good piece of fruit I was enjoying. When it was almost gone, for one reason or another I looked at it and much to my disgust, found hundreds of tiny worms crawling from the pit. I dropped the peach and promptly threw up in my co-workers wastebasket. Once I had purged every bit of my stomach contents, I went to the restaurant next door and threw back 3 shots of Cuervo 1800 for good measure and to kill anything that may be left.
I now cut all my fruit into pieces before eating it.
I’m getting ready to order out for lunch as I finish reading the comments. I might put it off for a bit now…
Hair, floss, what’s the difference?
I found a quarter in my french fries at Red Robin a few years ago. And the manager thought I was trying to scam him. Interesting enough we were just pointing out the interesting situaton. The fries are endless at Red Robin so I could as many as I wanted; so we were surprised he would even consider us scammers? I did keep the quarter.
I got a toenail and a bandaid in the same plate of spaghetti a year ago and I told my wife that if she didn’t start taking more care about making dinner we were going to start eating out all the time!
@ Oral – LMFAO !!
I have two good food stories:
We were out with another couple having a fantastic meal when I stopped a chunk of ice with my teeth as I was draining my second beer. It dawned on me that the glass wasn’t frosted, and I know damn well that ice doesn’t belong in beer! Turns out that they had stacked the glasses, and the bottom of another had remained in mine – one big clear disk. They comp’d our entire table, including drinks and dessert – we gave the waitress a fat tip based on the original bill – it wasn’t her fault. We have been back, and the food was just as good even though we had to pay.
The other story is a classic – a bunch of us from work would eat out for lunch every thursday, doing the rounds of various local spots. We were eating at our regular chinese restaraunt – which has delicious chicken wings and General Gau’s Chicken, with huge portions. A few of us noticed that the GG Chicken wasn’t up to the usual quality, some chunks seemed chewy and overcooked. Later that afternoon, the news went around the company that this restaraunt had called in the water and sewer department to complain about drainage issues, and the guy that came in to take care of them is related to the health inspector (go figure). Right away the inspector showed up and promptly shut them down for open buckets of “sauce” on the floor next to the stoves, and for “re-using” food!
Whattaya gonna do?
The standing joke after that was:
“What you want eat?”
“I’ll have what ever it is that he’s having over there – it looks delicious”
“Hokay, you wait. He be done soon.”
I once opened a box of “Jiffy” brand corn-meal mix to make some cornbread muffins, and it was infested with living larvae-like little white wormy creatures, all squirming around in the corn-meal. I nearly puked, and have never purchased that brand of muffin mix ever again.
My .22 feel out of my pants one evening while busing tables at a restuarant I worked at when I was a teenager. Long story, no time for that part. It scared the shit out of 60 year old woman. Luckly the safety was still on. The manager payed me in cash for my time and told me he would not need me any more. He didn’t say fired, he just said he didn’t need me anymore. He gave me a ride home and when I got out of the car, a plain clothes police officer came up to me and asked where I had come from. I told him my manager had just dropped me off and I was headed home. He sent his partner after the manager who pulled him over a block away. The officer told me to place my hands on the hood of the vehicle and spread em’. I complied now even more scared shitless. He patted me down but didn’t detect the .22 in the front of my pants. He told me that someone guys had just robbed a bank and the get away car matched the description of the vehicle I had just got out of. He called his partner and told him I was clear and his partner said clear here too. He sad “You can go now!” and I took off running. I never carried that gun with me again. Now I have a Glock!!!
Feel = Fell, dam you fat fingers…
I once found pine cones, grass, leaves , dandelions and bark in my lunch……oh wait……..that was my lunch.
As a kid in MD i worked at a Restaurant called Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour. We deep fried roaches, mice, and assorted other kitchen livestock. We put flies in the ice, served food that had fallen on the floor, and when an order was sent back, we naturally fixed it by hand (that is re-arranged it with our fingers), and sent it right back out.
Farrells, as in Home of the Pig Trough, the huge sundae they would bring out on a stretcher? In other words, the site of many of my birthday parties in the mid-70s? And now I find out you all were serving us fried cockroaches?? Ugh! Too funny.
I worked for many years in the restaurant biz and have seen many things that are better left undiscussed. Probably the worst was the cook at a nursing home where I worked in high school, who took a leak in the Chicken Noodle that was the soup du jour.
Totally in agreement about the moving on if I find a hair thing especially if I can see the source is a reasonably clean person. However, the black and curlies make me stop dead in my tracks.
I have a co-worker who prides herself an excellent cook (if making brownies from a box makes you a gourmet, then have at it), and every single thing she brings into my office has dog hair in it.
You should have seen what I found in Father Bob’s popcorn once.
@ Oral Roberts…. A Good-n-Plenty??
That story about the tampon in the ketchup bottle is probably just urban legend.
Soon after I moved to Atlanta, I and a couple of friends stopped at the Boston Market on Powers Ferry Rd to grab dinner before going downtown to a concert. Three things wrong with the place that night:
1. The ants marching down the cafeteria-style tray railing.
2. The cloud of gnats that flew out of the silverware basket when I got my fork.
3. The hair that my friend pulled out of his mashed potatoes.
We never went back again, and that restaurant closed down soon after. Thank God!!
Did you all check out twitter?
Twitter? What’s that? Check it out for what?
mountie – I’ve checked out a few of them. What do you need to know?
Insert, remove, repeat often.
Mockable?
Have a Great Weekend Surf Reporters!!!!!! !!!!! !!!!!
Yeah mockable. Was there a secret update I wasn’t privy to? I remember Jeff mentioning the project but didn’t think he said anything else about it. I don’t know, perhaps I missed something.
Ahhhha. Here it be.
http://www.mockable.org/
@ mountie9wv, Sign up at the top of the page, and you’ll never be out of the loop again! Become a Surf Report VIP!
I’m like you – if the place isn’t too nasty and the counter help is reasonably clean, a hair is no big deal to me. My husband would have been unable to eat that burger (or anything else for the rest of the evening) and Wendy’s would have officially been dead to him forever. Seriously.
Yeah, I got the super secret update about 15 minutes after the Twitter post.
Does anyone remember Alaskaland?
I think Forrest was right when he said, “stupid is a box of chocolates.” or whatever.
I hope my shirt was one of the nine returned. I hadn’t even realized they had shipped yet…
Ummm…Hi guys – just got back from my trip – couldn’t wait to get here after swearing off the internets for 2 weeks (didja miss me?).
Read through the comments. I need to go vomit now. I guess I’ll catch up wit yous on Monday.
I gots fish sightings to send, Jeff!
Jeff,
Is that a Soupy Sales autograph on your bunker wall?
-Poops
Back about seventeen years ago, I bought a big tub of potato salad at a deli across from where I worked at the time. It was enough potato salad to last for a whole week’s worth of lunches.
I pried off the lid, shoved a nice big fork full in my mouth, and stopped. Something felt odd, so I reached in to pluck it out. This girl sitting across the table said something about a hair in my potato salad…then I pulled out somewhat more than a hair and she started yelling OH GOD IT’S A WHOLE CLUMP OH THAT IS SOOO GROSS YUCK! I threw away the entire tub of potato salad.
A brief examination of the offending clump revealed it to be white hair. The only white haired employee at the deli was this nice little old lady. I would have complained about anyone else there but her. I let it go, and just stopped buying any of their freshly made goo salads.
There is only one long-term scar that I bear from the incident. My employer was one of the large chain bookstores, and when the first Harry Potter book came out, all I could think was “Hairy Potato Salad”. I still think that when I see or hear the name Harry Potter.
I was intending on commenting on the reason for the ladle on the wall, but when I saw it was autographed from the Soup Nazi the comment changed to “that’s an effing rad piece of memorabilia”