One of my worst nightmares became a reality one cool rainy day in May. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined it would ever come to be, but it did.
I walked into a Mongolian grill and sat down at a small table in the back corner. I watched the rain crawl down the window-pane as if the atmosphere around me was crying, foreshadowing what was yet to come.
For those of you that do not know what a Mongolian grill is, it is a restaurant where you walk down a buffet and dish up raw meat, veggies, and sauces into a bowl (which you then give to a cook to grill it).
I had been to a few Mongolian grills before – each time with the same fear. This time, my fear was confirmed. I walked up to the buffet, grabbed the tongs, and dished up raw chicken, broccoli, noodles, and a few other veggies and sauces. I placed my bowl onto the counter and waited for it to get cooked.
A lady in her 30s walked down the buffet all the way to the end and began filling her bowl with raw chicken. Because her bowl was so full of raw meat, some chicken fell over the side of her bowl. She picked up the raw chicken with her fingers, and then set it in her bowl.
“She’s going to have to wash her hands” I thought to myself, knowing that you can get very sick from raw chicken. To my horror, she walked to the other end of the Mongolian buffet and started dishing up the veggies and sauces – touching all of the tongs with her raw chicken fingers! The woman then waited in line behind me.
I couldn’t believe she just got raw chicken juice all over the tongs of the buffet. To make matters worse, then came the cashier to stir the veggies – touching all the tongs, and then going back up to the register to help customers…
That chicken juice spread like wildfire.
“Here you go!” said the cook as he handed me my plate of cooked food.
I walked slowly to my table, sat down, and ate my food while thinking “It’s safe, just don’t touch the food with your fingers, or touch the other end of your fork.
Some of you may laugh and think I was being a germaphobe that day, but guess who didn’t get fiery diarrhea. That’s right – this girl!
Let this be a lesson to those of you that don’t know – raw chicken has a bacteria called “Salmonella”, and if ingested, it can cause an upset stomach and most likely…how is the classy way to put it… the “hershey squirts.”
Sayitsister - saving one toilet at a time (and possibly floor/pants)