W.W.B.D. (What Would Bloggers Do)

I had dinner at a quasi fancy-pants restaurant (i.e. fairly expensive but no dress code) Sunday evening, where I was served a pretty scrumptious meal of pesto-filled ravioli.

After I shared a couple pieces with other folks at the table, I ate about half of what remained, thinking I'd save the remaining pieces for lunch Monday. After all, shouldn't a dinner that good — and that expensive — be partitioned out for as many meals as is humanly possible?

It seemed practical enough. So when a member of the wait-staff stopped by and asked to take my plate, my glance immediately turned to the other dish already in his hand:

It was a dirty plate from a nearby table. I assumed, then, that he meant to take my plate without wrapping up the remains.

"Oh," I said, a little surprised. "I'd like to wrap it up if I could."

"I thought so," he said, further extending his hand for my leftovers.

I paused, scanning the dirty dish cradled in his arm and imagining a million different bugs, germs and protozoans crawling the surface. I'd seen him pick it up at the table immediately to my left: so then I looked at the guy at that table.

He seemed healthy enough — or so I thought at first glance. But, gesh, he was wiping his nose an awful lot. And his skin did look rather ashen.

But I had people at my own table to impress, so rather than say "Actually, could you bring the box to me? I can pack it." — which is what I wanted to do — I lifted my plate to his already-extended hand and watched in horror as he placed my beloved ravioli on top, and yet still slightly askance, of the diseased, sickly man's dirty dish.

I tried telling myself I was being irrational. That this procedure wasn't the least bit unsanitary. And as I thought of all these things, images of Howard Hughes (or rather, Leondaro DiCaprio playing Howard Hughes) flashed through my mind, as if to remind me to stay calm, to not let on that I was uneasy. Or, in short, to not look like the paranoid freak I can sometimes be.

So I decided to play it calm, all the while resolving to intentionally leave my daintily-packaged leftovers on the table as we stood to leave. I was nearly out of the door when I hear "Miss!" over my shoulder, and turn around to see the guy running towards me with my microbe-infested pesto.

I smiled politely; thanked him; and then threw the food in the trash first thing when I returned home.

OK. So maybe I'm a germophobe. And, yeah, I can't help but think of my father, and all those times he reminded me of the children starving in Africa whenever I'd refuse to eat food on my plate.

"I'd send it to them if I could," I'd say earnestly, my eyes barely visible over the table-top, pleading to be dismissed.

But I'm not so sure pesto ravioli could last such a long trans-continental journey. And yet: I also couldn't stomach the idea of eating it.

So I threw it away.

Now what, dear bloggers, would you have done?