I just want to remind all the Vets and Baby Boomers that it was George Bush who put an end to open enrollment for Veteran's benefits and doubled the co-pay on meds for most of you guys/girls. And it is Bush who promises to veto the bill that would require Medicare Part D providers to negotiate for lower drug prices, just as the VA is required to do.

So when you're 65 and your company medical benefits stop providing drug coverage (thanks to Bush and Medicare Part D) and you find yourself paying out the wazoo for your meds, remember who screwed you.

When you go to apply for your veteran's benefits and find out that putting your neck on the line in 'Nam is no longer enough - now you have to qualify by being "low income" to receive the benefits you were PROMISED when you enlisted, remember who screwed you.

I hope you guys/girls at least got a kiss from old George.

TOM: There was a Deli shop nearby that did exactly the same thing when I ordered sandwiches a while back. They must have not treated me that way exclusively because they are now out of business. Probably spread some e coli of their own around town.

Anybody have any theories on why the bad stuff is showing up in lettuce, spinach, etc.? I think some of them workers is taking dumps out in them fields. Anybody got a better theory?

Tina loves it when I stand up for our rights.

Mr. Carlene hates it when I "make a scene", as he calls it. He discourages me from ordering soup in restaurants because I think, by definition, that soup should be served hot. I frequently send lukewarm soup back, asking that it be re-heated. One place told me they didn't have a microwave. I said, "You have a stove, don't you? And a small saucepan. That's what people used to heat soup before microwaves were invented." Mr. Carlene won't take me to that restaurant any more.

I would NEVER do that! Not in a million years!

Ever know a chef? They take it as an insult. You might just be getting very hot boogars in your heated soup and you don't even realize it.

I knew a pharmacist that talked about earning his tuition via a pizza shop. When people would send a pizza back with any complaint he would return it as a pit-pizza. He'd take the sweat from his pits and rub it around the crust.

I would never send food back in a restaurant. Not ever. If it's not right I deal with it and don't return but I never send food back.

I have heard the same kind of stories. :eek:

I made the mistake of sending a steak back once. Never again!

Mr. Carlene obviously has learned this lesson. :eek:

My daughter worked at a restaurant once (upscale) and I asked if this was an urban myth or if it really happened. She said that in her restaurant, the manager was in the kitchen much of the time and he would kill anyone who even thought about doing something like that. But I'm sure it is absolutely true for some restaurants. Who wants to take a chance on something like this?

When I was 17, I worked in an employee cafeteria in the Cotton Exchange Building near Wall Street in Downtown Manhattan. The cook would take the day-old bread and grind it up with chop-meat to make meat-loaf. One day, the exterminator had just finished spraying for roaches and he had left large puddles of insecticide all over the floor. A loaf of bread fell as the cook was putting it into the grinder/blender and it fell right into a large puddle of insecticide. You could see the bread loaf getting fatter and the puddle shrinking as the bread acted like a sponge soaking up the insecticide. The cook, never the less, pickup up the bread and threw it into the grinder/blender. When I asked her about it, she said there was not enough insecticide to hurt anyone in that large vat of meat and bread mixture. I never ate meat-loaf again in a restaurant again after that.

TOM: He should have nick-named his meatloaf "A touch of food Poisoning Meatloaf"

Remember the story about Kentucky Fried Rat?