The business of filth
By BILL MACK
Truckers Connection
5/13/2008
Warning: the content in this column may cause extreme nausea. The subject is filth. Trouble is, it’s filth most of us take for granted.
I receive a lot of mail, mostly from truckers, complaining about the cruddy restrooms and food establishments they are subjected to with regularity.
Many are of the opinion that a filthy restroom in a restaurant may be echoing the fact that the kitchen is in similar condition, and I wouldn’t doubt this at all. If the manager of an eating establishment isn’t concerned with the horrible, smelly, un-flushed appearance of the toilet (no, we don’t compliment this spot with the respected name of “restroom”), why would he/she give much concern to a greasy, un-mopped kitchen? Let’s face it: some people are just plain dirty.
Want a real upchuck? A friend of mine who used to work in a very respected restaurant in Dallas said, “You’d really be surprised how much lettuce, celery, radishes and other tidbits of food fall from the plate on the way to a hungry customer, only to be picked up from the filthy floor and placed back on the plate, before leaving the kitchen.”
My friend knew I was about to cave-in, but couldn’t resist adding: “I’ve seen meat handled the same way, but most times it’s the salad trimmings that take the dive to the floor before being put back in action on the plate.”
If an outfit in the business of handling food--yes, handled, not prepared--is caught committing such acts of pure-dee filth, they should be closed down immediately, no questions asked.
When I was a child, around five-years-old, my mom and dad witnessed a nasty incident in the “open-view” kitchen of a Fort Worth restaurant that has stuck with me for decades: the cook was licking his thumb, in order to separate the slices of bread. Since that focus on filth happened in my young life, I have questioned the cleanliness in all restaurants, regardless of their reputations and media-ratings.
To this day, I’ve regretted my mother whispering to me the reason we were “going someplace else to eat,” as we walked toward our car. Mom said she had to beg in order to get me to enter the alternate food spot they had chosen that day in Fort Worth. I well remember we had made the long trip from Shamrock, Tex., in order to attend the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, located in Cowtown’s far north-side back then.
Now that I live in Fort Worth, that horrible food incident that occurred over a half-century ago re-enters my mind every time we choose to dine-out on the north side of town. Granted, the memory could be classified as paranoia; it won’t let-go.
Allow me to mention: Fort Worth’s historical Northside is now consider to have some of the best food and fanciest restaurants in the world although I still keep an eye on the various kitchens.
Back to the restrooms:
It’s normal to find restrooms appearing spotlessly clean. This is a procedure followed by most of the more important businesses, from the fancy chow-houses in our bigger cities to the flashing truck stops on the interstates. Restroom cleanliness encourages high compliments from those who use them. It creates good “word-of-mouth” advertising. However, there is a “catch” to all restrooms, even if you feel you could eat a meal off the floor because they appear so sanitary.
Let’s go through the normal procedure:
First, you enter the room. Then, you find an empty stall or urinal. Following these procedures, you should wash your hands in very warm water, dashed with soap, and dry with the provided paper towels or an electric breeze dryer, which I hate. Notice I said, “You should wash your hands, etc.?” This is because we’ve all experienced people using the stalls or urinals, and then walking out the door without utilizing the hand-cleansing facilities.
Tough fact: your taking the time to be more civil by scrubbing your hands could be doing only a partial cleaning job. Let’s check it out: After you washed your hands in very warm water, dried them with a paper towel or that electric breeze-dry thing, you zipped up, double checked everything and then walked out the door.
Here’s one of the “catches”: If you had to pull on a handle or knob to exit, you simply picked up the filth from those who didn’t wash their hands before leaving the room. It’s reported that less than half of our public restrooms utilize the “push-to-open” door method, and most push the door open with their freshly washed hands. Tip: use an extra paper-towel to open the door. Those who are oh-so-finicky about cleanliness, use a paper towel to turn off the faucet. My daughters talked me into this habit.
Before getting a more dependable job, an old friend of mine worked as a “company-checker” in a men’s room. The lady’s room utilized a female “company-checker.” His assignment was to check the restaurant employees’ behavior in the restroom. After performing what needed to be done, if an employee didn’t wash his hands before heading back to his outside job, he was fired.
I would have thought the employees might have suspected something by seeing my friend in the restroom every time they paid a visit to the facility. He said there was no suspicion because people very seldom look at other each other in restrooms. One reason, the enclosed stalls. Second reason, one seldom looks around the room while utilizing a urinal.
Incidentally, my friend finally quit the “company-checker” business; he said the filthy restroom atmosphere was driving him nuts. He is now employed at one of Dallas’s better oyster bars. He cracks open helpless little “live” oysters. He admits that he cuts his thumb at least twice-a-day, but the salt water in the oyster tank seems to stop the bleeding within a few minutes. For deeper cuts, he keeps a supply of Band-Aids in his hip pocket. My friend is a smart thinker!
Hear Bill Mack daily from 12:00 Noon until 4:00 p.m. (ET) on XM Satellite Radio. The program is replayed from 8:00 p.m. until Midnight (ET). Bill’s book, “Bill Mack’s Memories From The Trenches of Broadcasting” and recordings can be ordered via his website: www.billmackcountry.com.
