Last night my family went to a Chinese buffet in celebration of my sister-in-law's thirteenth birthday. I was much looking forward to the opportunity to introduce my 11-month old son to Chinese food and partake in the eating of plates full of saucy, slightly greasy, meaty Chinese buffet food items. I also enjoy the dessert offerings. Other than some almond cookies and leechee fruit, I really don't think there is much of an Asian influence at the dessert table. It seems, though, that the buffet purveyor has mastered the art of large vats of slightly gelatinous muck such as pudding, Jell-O, ambrosia, etc. paired with chunks of various tropical fruits -- oh, and my favorite dessert item, chunks of bananas in bloody-looking strawberry sauce. There's a cake table, of course. Although, I have always noted that the Chinese buffet slice of cake in texture, flavor and overall presentation is more like ingesting a dish sponge dipped in coagulated animal fats and rolled in saw dust. But there's always that little sugar flower on top to fool you into thinking it looks "pretty" to eat. It's industrial strength cake. They don't care. It's not the food they eat in their homes - they're recipes that have been diluted or fabricated in this country to satisfy the palates of carb-obsessed, crab leg snapping, fat, balding, bearded, middle aged men, their equally gluttonous wives and dirty-fingered children. Oh, and me. This brings me to my central point.

I love junky guilty pleasure food just as much as anyone else. I find the buffet experience, with all my choices laid out before me, just as gratifying as the average person. I have been known, on occasion, to perhaps eat a little too much and yes, there are rare times when I, too, have been tricked into eating the factory cake. Although, I can say with all honesty, sincerity and compassion for my fellow man -- I have never in all my life experienced more rude people than at a Chinese food buffet.

What the hell is wrong with us? It's food. It's food -- not life saving medicine, not $100 dollar bills, not locks of Jesus' hair. It's food and there is more of it. Just because there is only one scoopful of lo mein left, it doesn't mean there is a lo mein famine -- there is more lo mein in the back. You don't have to stand and guard your post, waiting for the lo mein to come, waiting to be first. You can sit down, talk with your family, and eat the fifty other food items on your plate and I am sure that by the time you are done and ready for second, thirds, or fourths - lo mein will be there. It will. Also, please do not try to intimidate me with your man breasts. Please do not wield them around and think that by resting them on my shoulder or pressing them into my back or puffing them up and getting directly in my way, that that is going to make me silently slink to the bin of chicken nuggets in the corner. WAIT YOUR GODDAMN TURN! I paid the same amount of money to eat as you did and everyone else did. You don't get to shove people around and cut in front of them in line because you feel your blood sugar crashing due to all the strenuous and life saving physical challenges you completed today you big, stupid turd of a person.

And another thing, the people of Asian origin who work at the buffet do not want to be your friend. They speak English, enough to do their jobs, they don't want to practice speaking it with you; especially when you have very little command of the language yourself. They are not amused by the fact that you are American. They live in this country, too. You are not in the middle of South Pacific, The King and I or Miss Saigon. You are not in a 1970's porno film. You are a big slob with your family at a buffet. You are the upright walking version of a trough-fed animal such as a cow or pig. You are not going to give your waitress any insight into American life or culture. Thank her for carrying away your ten plates of half eaten food and mollusk shells, your fifty refills of soda, give her some kind of a decent tip and please don't be too offended by her curtness or downright unpleasant attitude -- she has at least ten other tables to deal with. Her job is not to entertain you with acrobatics or to play the pan flute. Her job is to clean up your mess. You should be ashamed.

While we're talking about it, let's talk waiting areas. Chairs. Things you sit on. While you wait. Sometimes older people need to sit. Sometimes pregnant women need to sit. Sometimes people with babies or young children need to sit. You don't NEED to sit. You WANT to sit. We all WANT to sit. The problem is there are not enough chairs in the waiting area for us all to sit. We will all get to sit soon, though, including you. If I am, let's say, totally hypothetically speaking, using a chair to open my son's diaper bag and make him a bottle and you are standing right next to me and hear me say to the man holding my child "I am going to SIT here and give him his bottle. He is hungry." Then, my big fat, bearded, smelly friend, you sit, you SIT not on the empty chair to my far right---but SIT on that chair as well as have half your ass on the chair that I am currently using---you, kind sir, are a jerk. The funny thing is, although we are all waiting to eat, my son, the baby, who is hungry and patiently waiting to be fed is not, in fact, capable of feeding himself. He cannot crack open twenty crab legs in one sitting. Or, let's say, use a soup bowl to get soft ice cream but go full throttle and let half the ice cream fall all over the base of the machine and the counter -- that is, indeed, something I would have to do for him. In this strictly hypothetical situation, you could have let me SIT with him for the five minutes I needed to and then your left ass cheek was welcomed to sprawl out. Another quick thing, just because a man is holding a baby or young child, rather than his or her mother, that does not, in fact, make that child any lighter, less wiggly or in a better mood. Men with babies may like to sit, too. They have backs. Your back is the area of your body beneath the back of your neck and above your buttocks; in case you lost contact with it under the walrus-like folds of flesh you currently call your body.

I would like to see a Chinese buffet to take two hours out of their usual day and serve three things: white rice, broccoli, chicken -- that's it. I would like to observe people's behavior. I bet with fewer choices it would be much different. Or, perhaps, have all the usual foods and tell people they could eat as much as they wanted for the regular price or they could eat for half price if they were willing to help restock the items on the buffet as they run out and bus their own table. It would be interesting, at least to me.

In all honesty, we had a great time celebrating her birthday. Let me also say that not everyone at the buffet is a rude jerk. It's a microcosm of our culture, in both good and bad ways, which comes with a side order of gluttony and an MSG hangover to go.