Food-on-top-of-napkin-syndrome

Nope, this is not a food blog, although is loosely based around food; More the service of food, to be honest. I'm siting here (as I write this) in a café called Cibo in the confusingly-named Melbourne Street, which is actually in Adelaide. Yeah, I know right? Anyway...

I'm here for breakfast and coffee and, as usual, have my MacBook Air with me. I was going to write a blog on behavioral epigenetics and the cutting-edge scientists who study it however something else far more important caught my attention and I decided to engage in rant-mode instead. So what on this slowly-dying-earth of ours could possibly pull me away from my post on behavioral epigenetics I hear you wondering...Well, read on and you will see. Or bounce out now and simply throw me a 100% vote instead.

This image shows my breakfast. Looks legit right? It's a gourmet vegetarian focaccia. No, I'm not vegetarian, but it's what I felt like at the time. Naturally a coffee accompanied my focaccia and in true Cibo-style it was very tasty, full of flavour and created with good quality products. You can see it's been toasted, cut and attractively presented on a plate for my enjoyment. As I said, it looks totally legit. But I can assure you it is not at all "legit". Not legit. Not even close to legit. So non-legit.

Can you see anything wrong with it? Can you pick the non-legitness? Go on, don't be lazy, have a good look. Study the picture, imagine you sitting there with that plate in front of you, eating the toasted focaccia, zucchini, red pepper and bocconcini cheese filling all toasted to perfection...Have you worked it out yet? No? Let me enlighten you...

Can you see the paper napkin on the plate? The one with the hot focaccia on top of it? That's the thing I'm talking about. Food-on-top-of-napkin-syndrome! I'm trying to swear less in 2019 but...What the actual fuck?!

Yes, I know there's a knife and fork so eating with my fingers is not required but what if I want to wipe my mouth when I'm done eating, like a gentleman? I'm supposed to use a napkin infused with melted cheese juice and olive oil? Not to mention the sweating of the hot focaccia having been sitting on it. Wipe my mouth and hands with a soggy napkin?

A petty gripe you may be thinking...Well, I think not. This is not something that happened just this once; It happens over and over at many locations unfortunately. Food-on-top-of-napkin-syndrome is becoming a thing in this society that so readily accepts mediocrity. I've been served all sorts of food that has been served with food-on-top-of-napkin-syndrome from cheese cake, burgers, chips and lots of other things. It's annoying and in my opinion lazy and just plain stupid.

Do you know why they do it? I do. It's done to hold the napkin in place making the transit from kitchen/prep area to the table easier for the serving staff; They don't need to worry about it blowing off. It's also done to limit the amount of napkins used. You see, if they placed napkins on the table in a holder people would use more, take them home maybe. So, they ration them out forcing people to use just the one. Well, the corner of one not contaminated with the juice or oil from the food its served under anyway.

Could I ask for another? Yep, I sure could. I could even stand, walk to the counter and obtain my own. But why should I? Have I not paid for a service when I chose to swap my paper-tokens for food, beverage's and service? Lucky tipping isn't a thing here in Australia huh? (For the record a small coffee and this focaccia cost me $15.95 AUD, so not cheap.

Over time I have had this conversation with many people who agree completely that food-on-top-of-napkin-syndrome is fast reaching plague-proportions. All also agree that something should be done.

There has been talk of peaceful street demonstrations however that doesn't seem to be the way things are done these days. Seemingly, the way forward is to CALL it a peaceful demonstration but in actual fact make it violent. You remember those ANTIFA pencil-dicks peacefully demonstrating against violence in America? Their demonstrations were completely paradoxical considering they were supposed to be peaceful demonstrations against violence and guns. The BLM movement did the same thing.

So, rather than hide behind the facade of peaceful demonstration violence and looting in the streets is the way forward when it comes to bringing awareness to food-on-top-of-napkin-syndrome. I suppose we could do our campaigning in another way such as the Ice Bucket Challenge made popular a few years ago. You know, that thing where you threw ice water of your head for a cause that no one really even knew about? I had a mate do it; He videoed it, posted it to Facebook and nominated someone else but had no clue about what it was all about. What a cock-knocker. For the record, it was intended to raise awareness about ALS. (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)

So keep an eye out for the food-on-top-of-napkin-syndrome protests in a city near you and look out for the food-on-top-of-napkin-syndrome challenge bringing awareness to this important issue. I'm not sure what the challenge will be, maybe sticking soggy paper napkins all over your naked body and waiting for them to dry, all captured on video or live stream for your Facebook page or steemit post. It'll be so much fun.

Ok, so my rant is coming to an end. In case you are not sure, or are simply clueless, this post contains a lot of sarcasm. If you don't know what it means just google it. If you don't like it just protest violently in the streets and make up some bullshit challenge about it to raise awareness to your plight.

For me? Well, I'll have to keep wiping my mouth and hands on other people's jackets, coats and shirts, those sitting next to me, like I do now. I mean, what choice do I have if I have no napkin? It's not that bad I guess, I mean at least I don't have to wash their jacket right?

The food-on-top-of-napkin-syndrome is a problem for me. I find it annoying, quite obviously, and I'm sick of having to peel off little bits of paper napkin that has soaked into my food prior to eating the food. That shit is the most annoying thing ever...

...Well, maybe equal most annoying. It's right up there with people putting my chicken schnitzel ON TOP of the side salad! Oh man, that shit freaks me out too! Hot schnitzel on cold salad? WTF! It's called side salad for a reason...It's meant to be on the damned side. For those who don't know, I have a bit of a thing about my hot food touching my cold food. Yeah, I know, no one is perfect right? 😂

• Top image: food-on-top-of-napkin-syndrome 😡

• Bottom image: non-food-on-top-of-napkin-syndrome 🙂