Is it just me?

Thanks so much for the advice and prayers--you guys are great!

I ended up procrastinating too much, and in order to get in my 2-mile walk with the dog before it was too late at night (I don't like walking late at night when Mr. X is out of town) and eat something before my 8:30 deadline for my thyroid medication, I decided to just run out and get a sandwich on my way to the grocery store. I tried to call R.ed R.obi.n to order the bruschetta chicken burger (yum) to go. Their phone system didn't work terribly well--if I pressed the button to place a to go order, my call would get dropped. While I was waiting, I looked at the menu online and saw that the bruschetta chicken burger (which I haven't had in more than a year) costs $10.50. Are you kidding me?

As I was driving to the store, I remembered the B.o.st.on Ma.rk.e.t on the way. Perfect! Reasonably healthy chicken sandwich, right? It was almost closing time, and the store was pretty empty. As I walked up to the counter, the poor girl standing behind the open food case with all the side dishes started hacking. And she didn't even bother to cover her mouth, so she was coughing pretty much on the food. OK . . . she proceeded to walk all over the kitchen, coughing on everything, then came up to the counter and asked to take my order. Um . . . some typhoid to go, please? I quickly glanced around . . . none of the plague-infected side dishes . . . maybe something packaged? . . . no, only coleslaw and cranberry sauce in the cooler . . . so, I settled on just the sandwich, since they'd have to make that in the back. But they were out of white meat. I took that as my excuse and got the heck out of there. I got a grilled chicken sandwich (OK, OK, with fries) at W.endy's.

Is it just me? Is basic hygiene too much to ask? The worst case I personally experienced recently was at an E.in.stein B.age.ls a couple of years ago. I went in and placed my order. The guy who had been coughing (into the corner at least, not directly on the food) proceeded to lick his fingers in order to get a better grip on the gloves, which he then put on. Nothing gets my appetite going like saliva on the plastic gloves. Then he proceeded to make my sandwich, pausing halfway through to rub his eye with his fingers! And when he went back to making the sandwich, there was gunk from his eye left behind on his cheek! Then I looked at his name tag and realized that he was the shift manager. I was so stunned I actually paid for the food and left, but I couldn't bring myself to eat that sandwich.