There should be a law against this.
This post is dedicated to all those who had to work today, on Labor Day, and who don't necessarily get their mandatory ten-minute breaks if there isn't anyone (say, a manager) to cover for them. Ah yes. Celebrate the humble, hard-working American worker. Put him (or her) on a pedestal today (for at least ten minites, twice).
Today is the day we celebrate workers here in America. The first Monday of September.* A "holiday" if you will. I suppose it's a holiday if one doesn't have to work on this day.
So what did I do today, on Labor Day? I got some work done for my job. Then, for dinner I partook in the great American gluttonous pastime of the buffet. I don't know about other parts of the world, but America is littered with the buffet. During my five days in the St. Louis area this past June, I partook in no less than two sessions at the buffet. One "Chinese" and the other was international of sorts.
The buffet is where the consumer (very literally a consumer) pays one price at a food serving establishment and then proceeds to gorge themselves on what is generally a great variety of foods. Tonight, the buffet was celebrated at Wok N Roll, which serves so-called Chinese style food.
There are 12 Herculean labors that are an integral part of eating at the buffet.
How do the 12 labors work, you ask? Here I will list them in the order in which God (Zeus or the American President and his corporate friends-since we have freedom of religion, you choose) deems.
1) Get seated at a table only to get up and go back to the front of the joint and serve yourself.
2) Pile your plate high. Those snow crab legs don't grow on trees, nor are they cheap.
3) Pile that plate higher; you paid a lot of money.
4) Sit and stuff.
5-8) Repeat steps 1-4 as many times as you can until the manager gives you an angry look or you feel you'll burst. This is where many ignore nature's signals regarding the cessation of eating. Of course, nature and science are for silly liberals. We Americans have the God-given free choice to eat as much as we can afford.
9) Now that you can't eat any more food from the buffet, go and get some dessert.
10) It's mostly sugar, so it doesn't really count as food. Make sure you get a lot of dessert, becase these are empty calories, hence, they don't take up room.
11) Be sure you've eaten your $--.-- worth of food. This is especially true on "holidays" in which the price of entry on this ride nearly doubles.
12) Now force down that fortune cookie that's been sprung on you at your final moment; it's the coup de grâce of this Herculean experience.
While I refer to the buffet as American, its origins spring forth from some other culture(s) in ancient times. Surely the Romans enjoyed a great spread, hence the need for a vomitorium. Did they have an actual buffet in Petronius' day-I am not sure. I'm pretty sure cultures from the "East" enjoyed the buffet on occasion as well. As it were, I refer to an occasion, as in, once in a while. Please, fellow Americans. Should the buffet be a common occurence for you, check yourself. Your body never intended you to eat this way, unless maybe you're of a nomadic people who scarcely eat once every two weeks, but if this was true, you'd have learned to cure and carry, and dispense food over time.
But hey, this is another festival style holiday in which we're supposed to be celebrate the fruits of our labors, the cooling winds of the fall to come, and have one last hurrahl into the toilet before we return to work and supposed mandatory ten-minute breaks.** Have another bite, America; it's on me.
*In other countries, Labor Day may be celebrated on 1 May.
**This is why you should always crap during work hours. Can you imagine, getting paid to shit? I can.
