So I've just got back from taking DD out to our local Chinese buffet for tea as a last day of term treat not because I couldn't be arsed to cook, oh no.
While I was sorting out a duck pancake for DD, a boy who looked about 8 stuck his hand into the pancake basket and started rooting around trying to peel off a single pancake.
I'm not normally the kind of person who tells other people's children off, I normally just grit my teeth and internally seethe while Jocasta and Tarquin play hide and seek under my restaurant table, but I am also a bit anal about food hygiene. Knowing that DD frequently has her fingers either up her nose or in her mouth fiddling with her wobbly teeth I couldn't help (gently) telling him to use the tongs not his fingers.
DD went to sit at the table and I went back to sort a duck pancake out for myself. As I was squirting hoisin sauce onto my crispy duck the boy's mother, with his smaller sister in tow, proceeded to stick her hand into the pancake basket and start pulling pancakes out. I like to think adults are a bit more hygiene minded than children, but since the washing hands after nappy changing thread on here I'm not so sure, however I couldn't help myself and I told her (politely) to use the bloody tongs. To be fair she did look embarrassed and apologised, and later I did hear her telling her children not to put their hands in the buffet dishes.
Then while I was paying I saw a man take a grape out from a bowl, eat it, then stick his whole hand up to his wrist into the grapes to pull out a fistful of fruit, totally ignoring the serving spoon in the bowl. I managed to avoid shouting "oi, mister, I hope your hands are clean" across the room, but I did give him a Paddington bear hard stare.
AIBU in never wanting to eat at a buffet again?