To ask about the weird things you only learned from MN?

[Blanchedupetitpois]

It seems like in MN world there are all kinds of rules that I swear I’ve never seen expressed or followed in real life. What have you been most surprised by? I’ll start:

1. Adults don’t celebrate birthdays, and if you expect any recognition of yours, you’re being childish.

1. Halloween is exclusively an American import with no history in this country, and celebrating it is therefore tacky and meaningless.

1. Trick or treating is glorified begging.

1. Absolutely nobody other than you or your DP is remotely interested in your pregnancy, and even telling another person that you’re pregnant is akin to riding a donkey down the high street while calling for palm fronds to be laid at your feet in recognition of the impending miracle of your unborn child.

But that wouldn't work either if volume was high

It always does seem to work to be honest. I have never ever been in a café with this system and got to the point of getting my food and not found somewhere to sit, but only if everyone follows the 'rule'. As soon as someone takes a table before ordering, the whole system falls apart. The only times I have ever wandered round and can't get sitting down is when people take a table whilst their friend goes and queues.

I'm not saying it's the only way, or the right way to operate a café, just that it does actually work if everyone does the same.

I don't understand how there is just magical system that keeps producing free seats when there is no management of the numbers of people being served food. Think about it, there is no rational explanation. I have been left without a table and it stinks that they've taken our money for food and we've nowhere to eat it! I'd rather leave, or make sure I do have a table to take my food to.

I used to eat frequently in a fantastic but postage stamp sized Italian restaurant at the corner of Fleet Street and Anglesea Street in Temple Bar in Dublin (currently Cafe Nero iirc), way before Temple Bar was all gussied up. There was seating for probably 20 people.

It was an ex-chipper and looked exactly like a chipper from the outside and indeed on the inside too, except there were a few tables and chairs, a far cry from its current spiffiness. People waiting for a bus (Temple Bar used to be the terminus for several routes) used to yell through the hatch on the Anglesea Street side 'Any chips?' The Italian owner/chef used to yell back 'No cheeps!' anticipating the style of the soup Nazi on Seinfeld by several years. He was greatly amused by this though, and one strangely slow evening left the premises and yelled through the hatch himself.

He used to take names and send people across the street to The Auld Dubliner to wait for a seat and dispatch his long-suffering waiter to summon them.

Also saw it happen at a popular cafe next to a canal in the summer. A group of walkers turned up, when I'd sat down and we'd all settled our dogs at a suitably out of everyones way table outside, the walkers arrived, the Q was out the door, I waited at our table and then got our short order sat dow, at which point others had food delivered and wandered looking for seats of which there were none left. We couldn't have taken our dogs inside balancing trays with dogs on the end of leads and not actually allowed to take the dogs in to order anyway...

I know there isn't a magical formula but it somehow does seem to work. The examples you've given of people not being able to get a seat are because there are already people at the tables who don't have their food.

I've learned from this thread that confirmation bias is rife. I would say the exact opposite to some of these!

Other things I've learned:

There are an awful lot of middle class women with orthorexia.

Some people prefer sticking their hand down a dirty toilet bowl to using a toilet brush.

Tradesmen don't shit like normal people but only produce heinous nuclear warheads that will destroy the toilet.

On another topic, I'm desperately trying to remember the other thread a while ago where Salem fought to the death for another batshit opinion. Can anyone help??

treacle the tables were all full of ppl eating...I'm sorry, but were you actually there that you can say that?

Ooh secret Emojis!! I'll rise to the challenge!

treacle the tables were all full of ppl eating...I'm sorry, but were you actually there that you can say that?

Sorry, I must have misunderstood your post. I thought you meant that you had taken a table before ordering and then the other people had nowhere to sit down. I thought that was what you meant.

There are an awful lot of middle class women with orthorexia.

YY to this.

We did, and were eating, and so was everyone else, kitchen over-served and no tables left for others wandering around with trays of food. They should've stopped and said there's a wait for a table so you'll have to wait 3/4hr before we can serve you

what is that, is it a bar of choc? If so, said how?

I had never heard of moon cups until I came in here.

you just do 'chocolate' in [ ] ..

the other one is bike

There must be more but so far I haven't found any others that work

ooh.. whats that then long?

There are so many MNers husbands who don't EVER watch porn or masturbate and the OP knows this for a fact! Any else think... I wonder what else he's telling her that she actually believes 😬

Ha ha!

How did you know about this Long

tell me, tell me, tell me shrieking I cant actually see what its supposed to be ....

It doesn't really make sense, sorry, didn't mean to keep you hanging archers

Long is not sharing [hmmpf]

That lots of people flush tampons!