An open letter to all the crazy, horrible people who own hot salad bars

To the raving lunatic who stocked this hot salad bar:

Have you recently freebased any saffron? Are you going through a divorce, leaving your brain with precious little time for critical thinking? Perhaps you’re an Animorph, working in this grocery store to unravel the self-serve culinary fabric of this once-great society?

How else, on this green, artisanally handcrafted Earth do you explain this ridiculous cesspool of a salad bar?

Actually: don’t even bother. Rest up and tune in, sicko. I’ll go first.

You are clearly an alien.


Have you recently freebased saffron?


With the sole exception of Louie Anderson, humans know what a salad looks like. Have you ever come across an assemblage of lush leaves, vibrant vegetables, tasty proteins, and a spritz of dressing? Perhaps a crumble of cheese, if the moon is full? Were you confused by this odd concoction? Did you wonder what it all meant?

That foreign mass is Sweet Lady Salad, you nutjob. She is a noble creature. I order her to create an illusion of healthful living, then drag her back to the privacy of my cubicle to drench her in ranch and bacon bits. Note her lack of potstickers, crusted cottage cheese, and Vietnamese glass noodles riddled with that little baby corn that somehow looks exactly like real corn.

By my pronouns alone, even a stark-mad maniac like you can infer how dear she is to my heart/stomach. Do you see now, you heartless bastard, that this “salad bar” hack-jobbery has besmirched her? BESMIRCHED!

I hate you deeply.

This is the Mos Eisley Cantina of salad bars

Let me point out, you knuckle-dragging [SWEAR!] bucket, that this silver vat is filled, not with romaine lettuce or cherry tomatoes, but with beef Stroganoff. Just a few doors down on this franken-bar, an unsliced meatloaf bathes in a grease puddle. The Mediterranean seafood delight lurks under a cloud of steam that smells like Lipton tea, failure, and unsigned trade agreements.

DELIGHT?! This is the Mos Eisley Cantina of salad bars.

At any point, was there a flicker in that vacuous cavity between your ears, when you reigned in your colossal overbite and recalled that SALADS GENERALLY AREN’T COMPRISED OF KUNG PAO CHICKEN AND COAGULATED STIR-FRY? At any point, did you consider breaking out some artichokes or olives or grilled vegetables to keep this Bunsen-burnered sh*t show from going completely off the rails?

No. You didn’t. This salad-pocalypse was calculated by a purebred sociopath. You probably want to tell me that “my salad can include anything you can imagine” but let me first tell you something, you dumpling-slinging dumbass. My imagination died the day I discovered I’d never work at Jurassic Park, because -- SPOILER ALERT! -- it’s not an actual place (I think?).

hot salad bar
Chihuo

Your incompetence has murdered evolution

On this unfortunate dinosaur-free planet known as Reality, we use creativity to start blogs, then abandon those blogs, and maybe try BYOB painting as an outlet for our work-related stress. Or something. But creativity has its limits, and not even Jeff Goldblum himself could mix warm JELL-O cubes & cold chicken Cordon bleu into something befitting the mantle of “salad”. LIFE CANNOT FIND A WAY. YOUR INCOMPETENCE HAS MURDERED EVOLUTION.

No, I’m not going to delicately pick my way through this minefield of suck -- a frito misto here, a few heads of cauliflower there -- to make up for your ignorance. I’d never make it. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS STRAWBERRY YOGURT DOING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PORK CHOP SECTION? WHY THE HELL IS THERE A PORK CHOP SECTION? YOU’VE GOT MORE BOOBY TRAPS IN THIS THING THAN A RUBE GOLDBERG SEX DUNGEON.

No mere man can survive this massacre.


This bar is a skid mark on the bedsheets of civilization

Look, I like massive squares of meat lasagna as much as the next guy. Potatoes au gratin? Au hell yeah. Mountains of fried rice? Ain’t no mountains high, and no valleys low. BUT LISTEN HERE, YOU FILTH-PEDDLING NIGHTMARE FACTORY: fried rice does not a salad make.

And I want a salad.

I ate a burger last night and the night before that and will probably eat another one tonight. But if I can eat just one measly salad today, I will lose 60lbs, earn an MBA, and probably be asked to coach the Yankees. So you see, your irresponsible construction of this grisly gutter is the only thing blocking me from achieving my true potential.

I consider you a skid mark on the white linen bedsheets of civilization, and I pray to Jeff Goldblum that you hit your funny bone. On a speeding bus.

Die alone.

Love,
Dave

Dave Infante is a senior writer for Thrillist, and has been thinking about what to get for lunch since he found out what lunch was in the 10th grade. Follow him on Twitter Dot Com.