[QUOTE=Ellen Cherry]
Good lord. I agree. Slobbery bones. Shudder.
Slight highjack: the ads are for Ruth’s Chris Steak House. I’ve seen these restaurants. What on earth does “Ruth’s Chris” mean? It’s hard to say. Who is Ruth? Who is Chris? And why is he Ruth’s?
[/QUOTE]
Nothing exciting with this. A woman named Ruth bought Chris’s Steak House in Nawlins, and instead of changing it completely over, just added her name to the original.
It’s not the worst, but adults who hold a fork or spoon by the fist is the most inexplicable thing I can think of as far as table manners go. Young children tend to do this because they generally don’t have the motor skills to hold the utensil properly. By the time you’re 5 or 6 though, most children can manage it (my two year old daughter holds her utensils properly- not because we taught her, she just watched us and copied what we did). I think it’s inexcusable for an adult to do so. If I see an adult eating that way in public, I’ll think there’s something developmentally wrong with them.
Not so much worst manners, as just gross.
In a nice Italian restaurant, a guy on a nearby table was playing with his shoes, often touching the souls of his shoes. When the finger food he ordered arrived he continued between touching his hoes and picking and eating food with the same hand.
[QUOTE=Bippy the Beardless]
When the finger food he ordered arrived he continued between touching his hoes and picking and eating food with the same hand.
[/QUOTE]
Now that’s an interesting mental image!
She must be found, so she may be placed upon a pedastal and worshipped as one of our goddesses.
[QUOTE=VunderBob]
[slight hijack]
Not worst manners, because it was not intentional, nor habitual, but it was a Most Embarrasing Moment.
Wife and I went to a famous Aussie themed steakhouse chain, and I ordered a beer to drink while mulling over the menu. I drank most of it with great gusto. The waitress came back to get the order, and when I opened my mouth, out came an unprompted (lacking the usual gastric discomfort cues) belch that registered as a seismic event. :eek:
I nearly crawled under the table.
[/slight hijack]
[/QUOTE]
Given where you were Bobbio (Surely thy nickname shalt follow thee through all the threads of thy Dope), I’m suprised that the patronage did not stand up and give you a rousing round of applause. 
I remember Chris’ Steak House back when they had a Ruthless reputation.
I’ve posted a couple times about the horrifying table manners of my last room mate. I’ve seen him eating with food in both hands and his nose an inch from the plate. I’ve had to leave the room because of the noises he makes. I thank god for the glasses on occasion because of all the food they’ve kept out of my eyes. A mutual friend of ours (and one of his new room mates) is pretty bad about eating with is hands and being coated with grease less from the middle of his chest to his hairline. And they always hold their silverware like they have to kill and gut the meal before they can feed. I feel like a prissy little Felix Unger around them even though I’m pretty far from dainty.
Table manners do count. My father’s the head of an emergency room, and when they were looking to hire a new doctor, they did dinner interviews. One of the interviewees apparently ate “like a truck driver.” They ended up hiring someone else.
[QUOTE=Dolores Reborn]
That other thread mentioned that asparagus is a finger food. Never heard of that, but I’m pretty sure that steamed broccoli is NOT a finger food.
Yesterday I witnessed a guy eat broccoli with his fingers. Unbelievable.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, asparagus is a finger food, provided it’s not slathered in hollandaise. This because asparagus can sometimes be fibrous and difficult to cut. Raw broccoli is a finger food, steamed is not. But let’s keep a level head on things. I had a stodgy old great-aunt who would admonish us for lifting the soup bowl to get the last bit at the bottom. A seemingly minor etiquette infraction, but some people take these things seriously.
Personally I think etiquette is phooey, at least the protocol bits. My general rule of thumb is, “don’t make a mess, don’t gross people out.” That’s the basic extent of my table manners. If watching someone eat broccoli with their fingers is that disturbing, it’s time to reevaluate things!
Plus, let’s face it, a lot of these “rules” are just dated snobbery used to size people up on rather arbitrary terms.
Good grief!
Is it safe to assume none of these stories happened at Dopefests? 
[QUOTE=VunderBob]
[slight hijack]
Not worst manners, because it was not intentional, nor habitual, but it was a Most Embarrasing Moment.
Wife and I went to a famous Aussie themed steakhouse chain, and I ordered a beer to drink while mulling over the menu. I drank most of it with great gusto. The waitress came back to get the order, and when I opened my mouth, out came an unprompted (lacking the usual gastric discomfort cues) belch that registered as a seismic event.
I nearly crawled under the table.
[/slight hijack]
[/QUOTE]
Well, look at it this way: at least you didn’t vurp.
I was reminded of another. I was absent for this occasion, but it was the usual gang I hung out with in high school. The setting was Perkins, which is like Denny’s with less racism and better food - bottomless coffee, various permutations of pancakes, etc. In was more or less home base because they never kicked us out despite boisterousness and abuse of infinite coffees privilege.
This time, it was the post-drinking destination. At least half a dozen filled a big corner booth. “Bob” was in the middle, with people on either side. (Please do not picture Bob from Twin Peaks for this story. The boy in the story, his real name is Rob but I wanted to protect his anonymity and dignity for this story.)
So,
“Bob” was in the middle, with no way of getting to the gents’ without much protracted fuss & bother, when queasiness came upon him suddenly. So he seized the opportunity he had: he vomited directly, neatly, unobtrusively, into his empty coffee cup.
They left very very shortly thereafter. My understanding is that the tip was generous.
The hospital I was working at often catered small receptions, in house, for doctor’s groups and the like.
At one I was overseeing there was a tray of small croissant sandwiches, cut in thirds. One guy approached and couldn’t tell what the filling was. So he picked one up an looked at it. Still no go, so now he sniffed it!!! Deciding he didn’t want it(it was seafood salad) he put it back on the tray!!!
I was waiting for him to turn his back so I could pick it up and throw it out. But as he left another person came up and chose the very same sandwich. Mentally I threw up my hands and decided to let sleeping dogs lie.
But these were supposed to be educated, sophisticated people.
My ex-husband’s grandfather had many disgusting habits at the table. The only time you would see him not chewing gum would be while he was eating.
At every meal he would drink a big glass of milk. As soon as his milk was poured he would spit his gum into the glass and when the milk was finished he would get his gum. He would also lick his plate and reuse plates without washing them between meals. When he finished eating he would let out a belch. I dreaded every meal with the man.
**McNew ** My husband does the fist fork hold, he has otherwise impeccable table manners, but for that one thing. It drives me nuts.
As for bad manners, my best friend, who I eat a meal with on a pretty regular basis, smacks loudly. This is one of my greatest pet peeves, I tell her some days, and she just laughs. She also has one of those jaws that pop every time she chews, the added sound just makes it all the more disgusting.
No one will ever accuse me of not being able to look over a person’s faults and love them anyway.
[QUOTE=Ellen Cherry]
Good lord. I agree. Slobbery bones. Shudder.
Slight highjack: the ads are for Ruth’s Chris Steak House. I’ve seen these restaurants. What on earth does “Ruth’s Chris” mean? It’s hard to say. Who is Ruth? Who is Chris? And why is he Ruth’s?
[/QUOTE]
Some folks can’t handle the idea of not having their name on a business, even if it creates something which won’t roll off the tongue with ease.
Were I the new owner of an established business, the fatness of my bank account would outweigh the need to have my name plastered on the marquee.
In northeast Philly at 7900 Roosevelt Boulevard, folks will find Ilona Keller’s Dugan’s. As a teenager, that one hit me as displaying a individual with personal insecurity.
Ruth’s Cris’s Steak House is in the Google Ads 
Gotta love computers …
My story. It was the last night of a big physics conference. The group I was with from (name of government lab deleted for anonymity) all had dinner together at a nice steak house near the conference center. About two dozen people, all with advanced degrees, none under 25 years of age - probably none under 30. The restaurant made a line of four-person tables to accomodate our party. I was at one end with four or five other post-doctoral researchers. Most of us were dressed semi-casually - button down shirts without ties, decent trousers (skirts for the women). The folks who had given talks earlier in the day were in suits. For example, the post-doc across from me was in a suit and tie. I still remember this almost twenty years later.
We placed our orders. Our food arrived. Little did we know the horror these simple ordinary acts would engender.
The fellow diagonally across from me started eating his steak.
He did not cut it into bite-sized pieces with his knife and fork.
He did not place it between two slices of bread, slathered with ketchup.
He picked it up with his bare hands 
and ate it …
As if it were corn on the cob! :o
This was an adult, like me! An educated man, like me! A man with a
Doctorate in physics
, like me! A man who was eating
STEAK ON THE COB!
THAT was unlike me, because I, along with the other post-docs at our little table, watched slack-jawed in shock while our companion completed his repast.
I don’t remember if I actually ate anything.
My little story does not end here, sad to say. Our dining companion, let’s call him Post-Dok the Barbarian, had finished his steak, and for some unfathomable reason his hands were greasy. He used his napkin to wipe the grease off of his hands, face, and beard. OK, give him a modicum of credit - he used a napkin. But the napkin had been saturated to capacity, its task far from finished. However might he finish cleaning off the grease?
The answer …
(drum roll, please) …
He used his NECKTIE to wipe his hands and face! :eek:
If I had not seen this with my own eyes, I would NEVER believe it!
After this, he went to the bathroom to wash up. The rest of us post-docs sat in stunned silence at the table. Then one of the others said “My mother was right … she said some day I’d thank her for teaching me manners!” :rolleyes:
This is a story I laugh about often. Then I think about poor Post-Dok the Barbarian. What might have happened to him on a job interview, if his prospetive employer bought him lunch? I wasn’t in his area of research, or his part of the lab, so I never ran into him again. For all I know he’s wandering academia, seeking employment with a school whose cafeteria does not serve steak for lunch.
One of my best friends…
he’s one of the smartest people I know, but he totally embodies awkward geek. He does nothing gracefully.
Meals with him are just… shudder His family isn’t as bad, but I can almost see where he gets it.
He chews with his mouth open, makes slurping and smacking noises the whole time, does stuff like drink from the bowl and eat noodles with his fingers. He wipes his face on his sleeve.
I could handle the rest, I think, but all the snorting and snuffling and smacking and noise just makes me want to puke.
[QUOTE=monica]
Table manners do count. My father’s the head of an emergency room, and when they were looking to hire a new doctor, they did dinner interviews. One of the interviewees apparently ate “like a truck driver.” They ended up hiring someone else.
[/QUOTE]
That’s pretty interesting. I have a friend who owns a restaurant and when she hires waiters she ‘accidently’ drops a pencil on the floor and if the person doesn’t pick it up she doesn’t hire him. Her theory is if they don’t pick up the pencil, they’ll have an issue working for a woman. Sounds a little strange, but whatever.
My story isn’t nearly as disgusting as some here, and boy are they disgusting!
I worked in a place where they had a cafateria style lunch room and a man I worked with used to pile everything on top of each other and mix it up. It made me sick to look at it.
After every meal, my grandfather would lean back gab a toothpick, unbotton his pants :eek: and start picking his teeth at the table. Anything he picked out he spit. No aiming, he just spit it out. The saliva, toothpick silvers, etc. just flew through the air.
Eeeeewwwww!
My own bad behavior (a slight hijack)
I work for the research division of a univeristy; our facility is next to the U. hospital. The hospital cafeteria is the only place within walking distance for lunch. (I miss our old campus. There were a lot a little resturants nearby and Jim the Greatest Hotdog Vendor in the World.)
One day I go to the caf to grab something to eat. While in line to pay for my (over priced, bland) meal, I notice the guy in front of me: He’s in a wheel chair - not unusual in a hospital - and he’s missing** half his freakin’ head**!!! :eek: 
:eek: It looked like someone had cut his head starting at the top, going straight down the middle of his forehead, and made a 90 degree turn between his eyebrows. That whole section was just gone.
I stared. It was rude and insensitive, but I stared and gapped at this poor man.
I thought my little story was bad but I think mine was just a Slob In Training…
When my stepson was about 15, he brought a friend over for dinner. We had spaghetti and this young man slurped his way through and entire plate full. My son was duly embarrassed and through stifled giggles, we made it through the one and only time we had the boy over for dinner.
He’ll be a treat for his first girlfriend when she invites him home for dinner with mom and pop. Oy…