Snack bars need to restrict my choices

© Abnormal Living

While reading this article with former Flight of the Conchords star Rhys Darby, one answer stood out to me:

I can’t stand going to those sandwich bars where you’ve got to choose your own stuff, because I don’t know what goes together. It does my head in. I’d rather them tell me. I’m not the expert. I haven’t spent years learning these different combinations.

I couldn’t agree more.

Here’s a fun fact about myself: I like excess. It’s why if you were to talk about me with one of my friends, family members, colleagues, and/or former pets you would most likely be treated to a story about the time I didn’t know when to stop. I talked too much. I drank too much. I played Russian Roulette to the bitter end and it left me with permanent brain damage. Or maybe I just ate too much.

See, buffets for example are a dangerous thing. Due to the second World War my grandmother – one of the two women who raised me – had a complicated relationship with food. She was an amazing cook, but if you didn’t finish your plate you were disrespecting her. Food was precious. Those values have become part of my nature, and you can imagine how that ends at all-you-can-eat buffets: often I’d have to be carried out.

It has also led to problems when it comes to snack places that allow you to put your own meal together. A few months ago I went to a burger place in Berlin, where I was allowed (or forced, I’m never quite sure in Germany) to choose different vegetables, sauces, buns, etc… It was all very confusing, and not just because I barely spoke any German. At the end of the “ride” I could choose two sauces. You know what I would’ve been allowed to put on there? Both mustard and guacamole.

To me that’s just sickening. Why would I be allowed to get away with such a crime? I can see how this kind of thing works in Subway for example, but when places just start copying this idea without any proper thought behind their new business concept, it’s time to shut the whole thing down. I’m into getting the most value for my money. I know that if guacamole and mustard over f.e. ketchup and mustard is the same price, I should go with the guacamole. If only because then I get the reward of cheating the system.

At the end of the day I didn’t. What I did do was frequent Yelp afterwards, and what I found there was someone complaining about the horrible combination they had made. Was I surprised? Not really, we’re horrible creatures and we need to be stopped. Chefs of any kind are in charge of our, when it comes to us customers. I trust their opinion. If we don’t put a stop to this right now, then what’s next? Will we be allowed to choose the speed of the buses we’re using?