Monday, June 16, 2008

Food Safety Tips From the State of Washington

"WHAT IS THIS? IT'S A HOT DOG! YES THAT'S RIGHT A HOT DOG!"

Jessica removed a plastic hot dog from the table next to her and squeezed it while she was talking, as if an invisible stage dog was waiting backstage to run up and grab it from her. Then she removed a plastic chicken from the same table.

"AAND THIS IS A CHICKEN!"

She rubbed them next to each other the way children do when they want to symbolize sex between two inanimate objects.

"NOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE RUB RAW CHICKEN WITH OTHER FOODS!? WE GET???? THAT'S RIGHT: SALMONELLA!"

An older man in front of me nodded his head.

"AND WHEN YOU, AS A FOODSERVICE WORKER, HAVE DIARRHEA OR YOU'RE VOMITING, WHAT DO YOU DO?!"

Vomit on the Wendy's chicken nuggets? Shart in your work pants?

"STAY AT HOME!"

Next, Jessica, a food safety instructor, showed us a video that included a re-enactment of what vomiting looks like, in case anyone had forgotten. Some teenager had been enlisted by the Department of Health to bend over a toilet and make groaning noises to show what it looks like if you're a sick food worker. His groaning was passionless, borderline ironic, but whoever edited the video included it anyway. Some teenagers in the front row laughed. It was as if the food safety video was parodying itself.

Then we all took the food safety test. Of course, it wasn’t very hard. It was one of those multiple-choice tests where two answers are incredibly implausible, and one is an actual joke, leaving your ego to rejoice in effortlessly uncovering the sole remaining answer.

I’m sorry, Washington State Department of Health, I seriously understand the need for poop and piss free food, but your food worker training session made me feel stoopid. Jessica; why did you have to yell at us? Are you incapable of hearing your own voice at a lower volume? Are you one of those people that respond with a loud and confused “WHAT?!” when someone whispers to you?

On the way out of the center house, I stopped at the Frankfurter store and ordered a kosher dog. Lo and behold, I found an eyelash hair on my saurkraut. I ate it anyway.

1 comment:

yen said...

I thought I saw you there.

I assume you'll be serving me my next salmonella dog?