The Best Thing Since Sliced... Rice Krispy Treats?

It was an unexpected surprise to hear we would be provided with catered snacks for both the morning and afternoon breaks during a special training class at work this week.

Everyone started out somewhat modestly, not wanting to be the first one to raid the snack table. As the week went on I decided instead of sitting there getting agitated waiting for someone to give the "OK" I'd delve in right away in order to eliminate the "I don't want to look like a pig syndrome" everyone seemed to be suffering from. Since I was the only girl in the group, I figured they'd see me as the 'manners authority' and follow suit of whatever I did. And if not, at least I'd get first dibs on the snacks.

I was happy to see my plan worked flawlessly. As soon as I came in and started stuffing my face, everyone else followed suit. It completely rid us of the awkward snack tension. Score.

On the last day of training during our afternoon break, we were happy to see they'd left us giant rice krispy treats. These things were huge. Like the size of bricks. Or at least half of a brick. At any rate, you could've built a house with them. So as per the established method, I walked over and grabbed one of these gargantuan rice krispy treats for myself and sat down to start eating. Everyone else grabbed one as well, but they also grabbed plastic knives too. I watched as they sliced off thin pieces of their treats and ate them as if slicing and eating a loaf of bread.

I wondered if maybe the treats were too hard to bite so I tested mine out. I picked it up and took a bite off the corner of the cube. Delicious. And not hard at all. Why were these people meticulously slicing off pieces of theirs? It looked like a lot more work than just picking the thing up and eating it.

At this point one of my co-workers said something about me not being able to fit the whole thing in my mouth so of course I proved him wrong by taking a huge bite. I laughed and kept eating my rice krispy treat, one bite at a time. I thought maybe picking up my treat and eating it like normal would once again give these guys "permission" to do the same, but no. Every single one of them continued to fight with their treats and slice off pieces bit by bit. It was insane.

Maybe I should have followed suit. Maybe I was the one with bad manners. But dammit I've never in my life eaten a rice krispy treat using a knife and I'm sure as hell not starting now. *belch*

What are you... a pack of wild animals?

I'm sure my family ate out more than most when we were kids. We were generally well-behaved in restaurants... never ate gum off the bottom of the table or ran around throwing food. Not that we had the best manners though.

At home during dinner we'd take turns spelling things like "ketchup" or "casserole." At restaurants we didn't need to bother with things like that, we had more interesting things to keep our attention. Restaurants always have extra things on their tables that aren't normally on the table at home... like straws. The straw papers always had to be blown at someone. Even now it's almost painful for me to just pull off the paper and set it nicely on the table like a civilized person. One time we were at Sizzler and I tried to blow a straw at my dad. It completely missed him and flew over his shoulder to the booth behind him. Luckily the couple who were sitting there happened to be busy over at the salad bar, so we were spared the humiliation of getting caught.

Restaurants also often have small baskets of crackers on the table. We were at a Chinese place on one occasion and Corinne thought it'd be funny to try and eat all the crackers before our waitress came back. She had a couple packets worth of crackers shoved in her mouth before my mom quickly shut down the operation... she "wasn't paying for a nice dinner so we could get filled up on crackers!"

Another common addition to the restaurant table is a carafe of water. Once we were at Village Inn and Corinne made a bet that she could drink the whole carafe herself in less than two minutes. She drank glass after glass or water, slugging it down in a nail biting race against time. She actually won that bet but didn't feel too good afterwards. I think she only won $2 so I'm not sure it was worth the pain.

For some reason my parents never took leftovers home from restaurants. For years, whenever I was unable to finish all of my delicious meal, I was saddened by the fact that the extras wouldn't be coming home with me. I knew that other people took theirs home, but my parents didn't, so we didn't either. I thought maybe it was a tacky thing to do. I never actually asked if I could take my leftovers home, I guess I just assumed the worst. I have since realized the beauty of the "doggie bag" and am a dedicated fan.