You been here four hour!

Hillary and I had the misfortune to eat at the Worst Chinese Buffet in Birmingham and Quite Possibly the Known Universe last night.

The food was cold. The food was disgusting. The waitress only spoke two words of English, and yet somehow still managed to come off as rude and borderline hostile. My water showed up with a small bug of some sort at the bottom of the glass. When I pointed it out, the waitress almost appeared angry at me for daring to notice such a minor inconvenience. We finally walked out and went to the slightly less nausea-inducing Cici's Pizza across the parking lot.

When we got home, Hillary looked up the Chinese buffet's health rating online. They received an 81 -- this is a terrible score, especially in Birmingham, which tends to average much higher scores than other areas around the state.

More interestingly, there were three "critical" items on the list. My favorite:

"Using a wiffle ball bat to stir tea. The end of the bat has been cut off. Provide a smooth easily cleanable FCS in good repair for stirring tea."

Now, my initial (and second, and third) reaction was to be absolutely disgusted by this. However, I love the show Good Eats. Alton Brown always says that you should never have a unitasker in the kitchen, other than your trusty fire extinguisher. Can you really fault these purveyors of fine Asian cuisine for getting dual functionality out of such a mundane children's toy?

Excuse me, I need to go throw up now.