My mother often uses the back end of her fork to clean her ears at the dinner table.
<related>My MIL teaches all her children to cover their noses with the colar of their shirts when they have to sneeze. She figured it was healthier than letting them sneeze into their hands or the open air. Ew.
Yikes! What do they do when they wear a t-shirt!
They usually wear t-shits. Sometimes tank tops. They’ll literally pull their shirts up by the bit directly under their chins 'til it covers their nose and sneeze inside it. Then, they drop the shirt right back into place against their chests. Boogers slowly making wet spots on the outside. Healthier, she says. Mystifying.
Kids are being taught now to cough into the crook of their arms, the theory being they aren’t covering their hands with germs. I’ve picked up the habit, too. Sneezes, though–I don’t know.
Ew, indeed. You win.
Pardon me whilst I gag…
I knew a gal who used to make noises like she was having an orgasm when she ate, punctuated by really loud farts and burps…
I don’t know who she is, she just sat next to me…
Please, please, please, I beg of anyone listening, don’t ever chew with your mouth open and make smacking noises. Please.
What a coincidence. I knew a girl who mades noises like she was eating when she had an orgasm, punctuated by really loud farts and burps…
Somehow, if she wasn’t my mother, it wouldn’t be nearly as disgusting.
That’s not the case with Ruth’s Chris, though. When Ruth bought Chris Steak House, it was under an agreement that said she could not use the name at any other location. This location eventually sustained a kitchen fire, so she opened another restaurant about half a mile away, using the slightly-altered name so that people would still recognize it without breaking the purchase agreement.
I work in a retirement home with a lovely dining room. One of the old men regularly removed his upper and lower plates half way through his meal, dropped them in hs water glass then reinserted them in his mouth. No one would sit at his table.
Two stories: one of my very best friend (I stood in his wedding) is an extremely sophisticated career professional who lives in a half-million-dollar house in Chicago’s North Shore. But he has the table manners of an addlepated toddler. Just appalling. Not only chews with his mouth open, but actively moves the food around in his mouth while chewing, like he’s making a concerted effort to show you every morsel.
He got divorced, and after a while started dating again. He could never figure out why he never got a second date from any of the women he met. Then one day he told me he’d met his dream girl. They started dating steadily. And finally, I got to meet her. She was equally sophisticated: East Coast Ivy Leaguer, and a lawyer for the ACLU. When the meal started, I figured out why they were such a perfect match: her manners were even worse. She intentionally make a loud smacking noise with every stroke of her chewing; it was somehow necessary for her to hear herself chew. Sitting across from the two of them was just an astonishing experience: the noises, the projectiles–just astonishing.
Eventually they married, and they are raising two children. I hope never to see their children eat.
Meanwhile, my best friends out here in Seattle, are very touchy-feely liberal artsy types. Very permissive with their kids. They’ve chosen not to teach their kids table manners. Their oldest daughter is the most beautiful, intelligent child of 8 you’d ever hope to meet. You just don’t want to eat with her. She eats with her hands. She so rarely eats with a fork that it’s like piano practice when I, babysitting, insist on it. She’s awkward with a fork, because she has so little experience with it. She takes food off others’ plates–even guests she doesn’t know–and she digs in the parmesan cheese tub with her fingers, eats the cheese from her fingers, then digs in again with her freshly licked fingers.
She has a rude awakening coming on Prom night, I’d think. Although judging from my friends in Chicago, maybe not.
Sounds like my grandma. Each time she uses her knife, she sticks it in her mouth and sucks it clean. Then she sticks that same knife in the butter. Nothing like opening the container to find little bits of chewed-up food mixed with grandma slobber.
Gaaack. I saw the same routine, at a restaurant, with the ketchup. Guy would stick his knife in, pull out some ketchup, slather it on his burger, lick the knife clean, and go back for more. Many, many times. Since most restaurants just fill up the ketchup bottles at the end of the day, you know his germs are going to be in there for the rest of eternity.
My story of accidental appalling manners:
Some friends of mine wanted to go and treat ourselves to some expensive steaks. For various reasons too long to go into, we ended up at Smith&Wollensky’s - some VERY expensive steaks.
At this point, I should mention that I was recovering from bronchitis. I had been sick as a dog for two months. At night, my coughing was bad enough that it would trigger my gag reflex, and I would wake up vomiting about three times a week. However, I was getting much better, and was always much better during the day when I was moving around.
I should also mention that Smith&Wollensky’s patrons are largely businessmen, and virtually everyone there was in a suit, with the exception of my table, which was composed of goths, punks, and skinheads.
About halfway through the (huge) meal, I get a coughing spell that I just cannot stop. I’m blind with pain, desperate to breathe, and I feel myself starting to gag. Too late, I try to get to the bathroom, but I can barely walk and I don’t know where it is. So I promptly throw up first all over a serving table (convenient, they can just wheel it away), then again between two large tables of businessmen, and lastly directly in front of the ladies’ room door. All while coughing loudly enough that most of the restaurant is staring at me.
In the bathroom, I get myself composed, get the coughing under control… and realize that I’m hungry now. There’s nothing wrong with my stomach, and I just vomited up all the lovely food that I had eaten. So I go back to the table, reassure my friends, and resume my meal.
Two minutes later our waiter, grinning ear to ear, shows up with free port for the whole table. WTF? I can only guess that the waitstaff got a kick out of watching some goth chick vomit all over their usual corporate clientele - but I really dont know.
From the discription of his table manners I’d have thought he was a mathematician 
.
You beat me to it. Man, I had freshman roommate who’ll probably receive the Field’s Prize at some point, and then start licking it while he’s still up there on stage.
Asparagus that’s fibrous and difficult to cut is asparagus that hasn’t been cleaned properly - and actually, one reason people around here cut them when in polite company is that if you run into one that’s not well cleaned, it’s much neater to pull out that one tough fiber with your knife than from between your teeth.
FTR, I’m from the World Capital of Asparagus. We do the occasional artichoke, too.
Well, he’s a theorist. That’s close enough for me. I have met experimentalists who were nearly as clueless. In particular, one professor of mine must have a team of full-time guardian angels, or he’d have accidentally killed himself years ago. I don’t have any dining-related stories about him, though.
I used to work at Denny’s. My favorite horrific manners stories:
The matronly looking woman, having dinner with her husband and 2 children, who grabbed her pork chop off of the plate before I finished putting it in front of her, and ate it with her hands. (I offered a co-worker 10 bucks to ask her if she was raised by wolves, but he chickened out, so we’ll never know)
The many, many, people who would bellow at their kids “SAY PLEASE” “SAY THANK YOU” and then not remember the “magic words” when it was their turn to order.
-Being a kind waitress, if I came to a table where it was obvious that evertone is chewing, I would stand there and talk until they could politely reply (usually saying something like, “don’t you hate it when the waitress only comes when your mouth is full?”)
Many people seemed to think I did this so that I could not only get to see the mid-chew food, but also get interrupted!
Jellychick and I were at a fairly nice restaurant a few weeks ago and the woman beside us finished her scallops, pulled a box of floss out of her purse and went. to. town. Hands in the mouth, wild contortions, bits flying everywhere - this was a flossjob that would make any hygeinist proud. I just don’t know why I had to see it. In a restaurant. At the table. Ew. 