Bad Food Service

Everyone,

I don't know what it is about my pregnancy and the fact that I hate to eat any food I cook myself. I also hate to eat home cooked food so Juice cooking is not a good change either. (Juice can cook basic bachelor stuff...mac and cheese, frozen pizza, etc. Not what I like to eat these days.) I figure this is the time in my life that I can splurge a little and eat out. Mostly, Butterfly and I go out for lunch or swing by someplace on our way home. I've had two kind of bad food experiences lately that have made me rethink where we eat.

So, first one. We are at the famous fast food place getting chicken nuggets. Instead of running through the drive through like we normally do, I thought it would be nice to go in and eat for a change. Butterfly was good, all was going well. Until the worker who's job it was to clean dining room came out. He cleaned the top of the ceiling fans. Not the best idea with a bunch of people eating around (dust is now flying in the air) but he stood on a table to do this. And then, just walked away. No cleaning of the table at all. You could see his big greasy dirty foot print on the table for as long as we were sitting there. I attempted to tell the manager about it and at least get the table cleaned off. No one understood me because no one spoke English. We left and I vowed not to eat at that place again. Yuck!

Second one. Butterfly and I were in mall (not the one by our house...closer to DC) for a doctor visit. Apparently my doctor's practice has an office in this mall. And since I had to see the doctor who saw me in the hospital for my follow up, down to the mall we went. Doctor visit was short and sweet (always is...and I always wonder about it. I mean, I know they will answer all my questions I want and listen to my complaints, but for some reason I always feel a little rushed. Could be because most of my doctor visits are during lunch since I always call with questions and they always tell me to just come in.). I figured we may as well eat in the mall before we go home and down to the food court we went. What a pitiful food court. 4 food places and very little seating. We got pizza (what mall does not have pizza?) and sat down. I was done and waiting for Butterfly to finish her slice. A huge cockroach crawled right across the table. I freaked, jumped up and grabbed Butterfly while trying to kill the awful thing. I flag down a worker, and am pointing to it (on the floor now). All three workers looked at me with blank stares. I tried cockroach in Spanish. Again, blank stares. Seriously, if I see an enormous bug crawling around a food service place I worked, I would be flipping out. Nope, nothing. So I hustled Butterfly out of there ("My pizzzzza! My pizzzza!") and went to tell the gals at the concierge desk. I have done that job before and I knew they would be able to at least get in touch with mall management to tell them. They appropriately freaked out for me and called the manager right away. I told him where I was sitting, and how the workers really did nothing for me there. He promised to take care of it, and at least they know now. But I am also never eating in that mall food court again. Gross.

What kind of bugs are lurking in other food places? Okay, maybe I shouldn't have gone down that route. Especially since I found a dead cricket in one of my pans the other day. At least mine was dead and could be cleaned. And was. And all other pans around it. And underneath the stove. No wonder my uterus is unhappy.

Safire