Читать книгу Chili Dawgs Always Bark at Night - Lewis Grizzard - Страница 25

Who Needs Self-service?

Several days ago, I was eating in a fast-food restaurant. Which one isn’t that important here, but they have awful chili. It’s too runny and there’s too many tomatoes.

A couple seated across from me finished their meal. The man got up first and headed for the exit.

The woman said to the man, “Aren’t you going to clean off your part of the table?”

The man said in reply, “Certainly not. I’m not an employee here. I just came in for lunch.”

I rose to give the man a standing ovation and knocked over my container of chili, which spilled onto the floor.

For years I have stood foursquare against cleaning off my table at fast-food restaurants.

For one thing, it makes me feel like I’m back at the grammar-school cafeteria.

You walk in, get in line, and pick up your tray of food; then you carry your food to your table, eat it, and you’re expected to clean your mess.

Every time I go through all that, I can hear Mrs. Bowers, my second-grade teacher, saying, “You can’t go out to the playground until you’ve eaten the rest of your English peas.”

But there is a more important issue here. If fast-food restaurants can convince you to clean up after yourself—as is mostly the case—it means they don’t have to hire somebody to do it for you.

Think of all the jobs that would be created if all of us customers said to fast-food restaurants, “You want the table cleaned up, then hire somebody to do it.”

For instance, McDonald’s could put that silly clown to work as a busboy and pay him overtime.

I’m not certain what has happened to service in this country, but there seems to be less of it than ever. Consider:

 The only way you can get food in most airports is to do the cafeteria-line bit and then pay the sullen cashier.

 If you have bags, try carrying them with one hand while juggling food and drink on a tray with the other.

Since the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t provide statistics, there is no telling how many passengers are scalded in airport cafeterias each year by dropping their trays and getting hot coffee in their hair.

 You have to pump your own gasoline most times these days.

 There are no longer ushers in movie houses to show you to an empty seat.

 An ever-increasing number of grocery stores insist you unload your own buggy at the checkout line.

 What’s next after a haircut? Is the barber going to insist I sweep the floor?

All this self-service nonsense began with the salad bar. Restaurants discovered people would actually get up and make their own salads.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: I want somebody to bring my salad to me, because when I go out to eat I prefer not lifting a finger.

I also didn’t clean my table after eating at the fast-food restaurant the other day, either, and I have made a pact with myself never to do so again.

As for the chili I spilled on the floor, that’s where it belonged in the first place.