From The Past: March 4, 2006

While waiting for a table at some western-type restaurants, there are huge vats of shelled peanuts you can eat from. Either you keep getting handfuls of peanuts from the vats or you can grab yourself a pail, fill it up and then eat from that. Most times when you sit down to wait for your name to be called, you find pails already filled which you can then eat from:

The custom at these restaurants is to throw your empty shells down on the floor. It took me a while to get used to this idea, but I am now a pro. Last night, while waiting for a table, Kevin leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I don’t think I’ll be eating the peanuts in these places anymore.” I gave him a puzzled look and he leaned in again saying, “This little girl next to us has sucked on three or four nuts and she just spits them back into the pail – slobber and all.” I looked over to see a sweet, angelic-looking little girl in pigtails that seemed to be about two years old. Yes, she looked sweet and I’ll bet she just loved sucking the salt off the shells, but GEEZ! Her daddy would tell her, “don’t do that.” But, then he would go back to playing with his cell phone. He never really made any effort to stop her.

Parents, this is gross. Please don’t let YOUR kids be the ones who spoil it for everyone. Watch your kids and make sure they do the right thing with the nuts. I agree with Kevin – it will be a while before I am able to forget that image.