One day last week, my sister called to ask if I could take my niece, Sweet Pea, to a Girl Scout function on Saturday.  Our conversation went something like this. 

• Sister:  What are you doing Saturday?

• Me:  Laundry. 

• Sister:  Would you mind taking Sweet Pea to a Girl Scout function, because I have stuff to do.

• Me:  …

• Sister:  It involves pizza.

• Me:  Pizza is a form of hot-buttered bread, right? 

• Sister:  Huh?

• Me:  Okay, then. Yes.

• Sister:  Okay, well, it’s at Stevi B’s Pizza Buffet.

• Me:  …

• Sister:  Hello?

• Me:  Ewww.

• Sister:  What’s wrong with that?

• Me:  There’s germs there.

• Sister:  Huh?

• Me:  Germs.

• Sister:  Whatever.  Can you take her?

Germs, people.  I’m sorry, but kids running around with snot and dirty hands poking around food kind of sends me into a frenzy.  Not that I mind kids…I love kids.  It’s the snot and dirty hands that scare me.

Case-in-point…I was at Whole Foods a couple of weekends ago and there was a mother making a to-go plate of salads and whatnot.  Right beside her was her small child who totally stuck her entire dirty, little hand into the vat of croutons.  And the mother saw it happen!  And she didn’t say a word to her!  And this all went down at Whole Foods, people.  I can only imagine what happens at a pizza buffet with kids running rampant!  I am scared. 

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I am not saying anything bad about Stevi B’s.  I just happen to not be a friend to buffets of any sort.  But, I agree to take Sweet Pea anyway, because she’s my niece, and I need her to come visit me in the nursing home when my son, Gus, commits me (even though he’s only 18 years younger than me and we’ll probably be there at the same time–sharing a room).  I vow to make friends with the buffet and hope that I do not walk away with Hoof & Mouth disease or whatever it is that kids spread around these days.  Not to mention that it’s cold and flu season, and I’m just now recovering from a month-long spat of something ugly and phlegm-like. 

So, off we go to The Hoof & Mouth Buffet (I am so opening a buffet restaurant and calling it that.  Would you please come to eat there?).  Anyhow, to my great joy, the outing started at 10:00am, so our group had the entire restaurant to ourselves before the snot and dirty hands of anyone else could start messing around with the food.  And, by the way, the girls were all required to wash their hands before they started with their little pizza-making activities.  Because, that’s what they were going to do—make pizzas.  But, I was not going to eat any. 

After putting the girls into groups of fours, they were allowed to roll out some pizza dough (using their freshly washed hands) and spread out pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni, hooves, mouths, and the such.  And then, you’ll never guess what happened.  The pizzas that they so diligently prepared and breathed upon?  Were not allowed to be cooked.  You want to know why?  Because of germs.  Germs, people.  Woo-hoo! 

So, instead of eating the pizzas that the little scouts toiled over, we ate pizzas that Stevi B made.  Off of the buffet bar.  I hope that he was wearing gloves and a hair net when he made them.  Nevertheless, here’s a picture of Sweet Pea and me at the pizza buffet place looking all happy, germ-y, and hoof-mouthed.

And, here’s one of Sweet Pea spreading around some sauce.

Oh, and one last thing.  Speaking of germs, did anyone happen to catch this article?  My, oh my.  I better quit freaking out over buffets and start worrying about my workspace!  Thanks, Dave, for giving me something new to fret over.