Stupidity is Becoming Contagious.

[TheTigress]

This customer wasn't sucky, but he was stupid.

"I was wanting some RED meat."

At that time we had recently run out of meatballs in the front because the morning prep person hadn't had time to prep any new containers of them yet.

Customer comes in and wants a meatball. I apologetically tell him that we are out of them right now. He was kinda bummed but wasn't sucky about it. He also didn't want anything that wasn't on the $5 dollar menu.

DC = Dumb Customer
Me = Me

DC: Darn, I was really wanting some red meat...

Me: (pointing to the ham) We have ham. (which is also $5)

DC: But ham isn't red meat.

Me:
(with some on the side)

I just stood there in amazement and awe from what he just said. Here I am looking directly at the ham which is most definitey RED in color, and it being pretty common knowledge that pork is considered a red meat. I wanted so badly to correct him but somehow my brain to mouth filter actually held strong this time.

Luckily he was polite the rest of the way and didn't do anything sucky. After he left, though, I went to my co-worker and told him what had transpired and he was like "Are you fucking serious? Of course pork is considered a red meat!"

Onto the next story:

"Let us stop and ignore ALL these customers to fix YOUR issue!"

Someone had flooded the men's restroom. My co-worker had managed to unclog the toilet but there was still water all over the floor and out into part of the hallway. (probably done on purpose) We were about to take care of the water issue and mop it all up but then it suddenly got really busy so we were all on the sandwich line doing customers. The bathroom had to wait.

This customer had actually already been helped by me earlier, (and he was kinda picky and condescending about the exact length, width, and girth of sauce he wanted on his sandwich, despite KNOWING that our sauce bottles don't always squirt it out consistently, ESPECIALLY if you don't want too much. Our bottles are very hit and miss)

Anyway...

There was a line of customers which we were busy helping, and he comes up to my co-worker and gets this sort of high and mighty tone about the men's restroom having water all over the place and that "someone needs to take care of it right now."

I said out loud (but he didn't hear me) "Yeah, we will get to that when we actually have time to!" because it really pissed me off. Yeah, let's just ignore all these customers that came in for a bathroom.

[Aethian]

I always thought pork was considered white meat?

[Sapphire Silk]

Let me play Devil's advocate on the red vs white meat thing on pork.

A while back, the pork industry actively marketed pork as a white meat, in an attempt to woo back health conscious customers.

Of course, it was a total lie and they don't do it anymore. But some people may have been too stupid to see through it.

[Aethian]

But some people may have been too stupid to see through it.

From Wiki... (and yes I know how some people question wiki)

Given nutritional concerns, meat producers are eager to have their products considered as "white", and the United States National Pork Board has positioned their product as "Pork. The Other White Meat", alongside poultry and fish; however, meats which are red when raw and turn white on cooking, like pork, are sometimes categorized by the United States Department of Agriculture as red meats.[2] This categorization is controversial as some types of fish, such as tuna, are red when raw and turn white when cooked; similarly, certain types of poultry that are sometimes grouped as "white meat" are actually "red" when raw, such as duck and goose. The debate is mainly one of semantics as nutritionists consider all meat from mammals to be "red meat" while this is not the case in other fields such as husbandry, biology, genetics, physiology, etc.

In Israel, where Jewish dietary laws forbid the consumption of pork, and usage of the word "hazir" ("pig" and also "pork") is taboo, "white meat" is the accepted way to refer to pork.[3]

It looks like it just isn't the pork industry and more of what color the meat is when it has cooked. With other classifications coming about for wild game such as the "black meat" that the french uses to place on white birds.

[alowlypotato]

It looks like it just isn't the pork industry and more of what color the meat is when it has cooked. With other classifications coming about for wild game such as the "black meat" that the french uses to place on white birds.

To be fair, that doesn't quite tell the whole story. The USDA actually categorizes the color of meat based on the amount of myoglobin in an animal's muscle tissue. Pork contains more myoglobin than fish or poultry, which is why it's considered red.

Granted, that's still slightly arbitrary, and some people do view pork as kind of belonging to its own separate category, since it has too much myoglobin to be white but doesn't have as much as beef.

[42_42_42]

Hmmmm....I *do* always take marketing with a big ol hunk o'salt, so I never took the pork industry's word for it that pork was now a "white meat", but I never really thought of it as read meat, either (to be honest, never really thought of m eat as being classified by color, other then when identifying which part of the chicken or turkey I wanted), although, now that I think about it, I guess it is.

The definition above of "from mammal = red meat" makes sense. Very likely, in the SC's mind red meat = beef, which IS rather limiting when you consider all the yummy (to those of us who eat meat) other red meats out there: bison, venison, elk, kangaroo, horse, buffalo, etc.

Curious, what would reptile and amphibian meats be? I don't personally care for gator, frog, or rattlesnake, but I know some people like them. I know under the medieval classification gator and frog would be considered a fish because they're in the water at least part of the time and back then beaver was considered fish and ok to eat during times of fasting (during which it was verbotin to eat meat, cheese, eggs, or dairy according to the medieval church) as it "lived" in the water! I doubt we'd consider gator/frog/snake to be "fish" today, but I'm thinking that they would fall under "white meat"?

[Sheldonrs]

I don't care what you call it, if you can get bacon from it, it's the best thing ever!!!

[bainsidhe]

Am I the only one to think that by "red meat", the guy was referring to marinara sauce? Because the guy could've eaten roast beef if beef was acceptable.

[Aethian]

Am I the only one to think that by "red meat", the guy was referring to marinara sauce? Because the guy could've eaten roast beef if beef was acceptable.

That was my first thought as well.

[alowlypotato]

I don't care what you call it, if you can get bacon from it, it's the best thing ever!!!

An excellent point, sir!

[HappyFun Ball]

I can see where that person would think that pork is white meat.. I mean it was beat into our heads in the 80's with the "Pork, the other white meat" campaign.

[Mystic]

Hmm, learn something new every day.

I rarely eat pork so I always assumed it was white meat as well.

[Shalom]

Not ever having eaten them (not kosher), but I'd guess that snake would be white meat similar to poultry; birds and reptiles are pretty closely related. (Probably more like the dark meat portion of a chicken; breast muscles are "white" because (non-free-range) chickens don't fly, and I can't imagine any muscles on a snake that it wouldn't use regularly.) Alligators are also reptiles, albeit semi-aquatic ones, and people who've eaten it claim it tastes like chicken.

As to frogs... dunno what you'd call it. Green?

edit to add:

In Israel, where Jewish dietary laws forbid the consumption of pork, and usage of the word "hazir" ("pig" and also "pork") is taboo, "white meat" is the accepted way to refer to pork.

The word "ḥazir" (חזיר) was indeed considered an obscenity from Talmudic times, although it's used in the Torah in the clear. The Talmud usually refers to this animal, when not discussing the technical aspects of its meat, as "דבר אחר" "davar acheir", literally "something else". Various novels about the times of the founding of the State of Israel (Exodus, The Source) also mention people referring to pigs under euphemisms, e.g. "zebras", or sometimes "friends". Never understood that last, until it finally hit me that "hazerim" (swine) is one letter away from "haverim" (friends). Makes a lot more sense in Hebrew than in English.

And then there are other euphemisms. When I was in tenth grade, I had a teacher who'd visited Israel many times beginning in 1966, and would often regale us with tales of how things were back then. He said he was walking once in a market, and saw a store advertising "בשר אוינק". He was scratching his head trying to figure out what the hell that was, not recognizing the second word as standard Hebrew, until he realized . . . it said "B'sar Oink". As he put it, the guy was selling "oink meat". The term "b'sar lavan" for "white meat" apparently hadn't yet come into use that early.

[wolfie]

I know under the medieval classification gator and frog would be considered a fish because they're in the water at least part of the time and back then beaver was considered fish and ok to eat during times of fasting (during which it was verbotin to eat meat, cheese, eggs, or dairy according to the medieval church) as it "lived" in the water!

Sheldon, are you feeling OK? Yours was the next post after this, and you didn't comment on it.

Am I the only one to think that by "red meat", the guy was referring to marinara sauce? Because the guy could've eaten roast beef if beef was acceptable.

IIRC, roast beef isn't on the $5 menu, and the OP said the customer was only interested in the cheap sandwiches.

[fireheart]

Sheldon, are you feeling OK? Yours was the next post after this, and you didn't comment on it.

Since he didn't, I will....

I know under the medieval classification gator and frog would be considered a fish because they're in the water at least part of the time and back then beaver was considered fish and ok to eat

So does that mean that in the modern era, certain beavers smell like fish?

And as for my own argument, here's how I've seen it:

Chicken, turkey, fish: white meat.
Kangaroo, pork, lamb, beef: red meat.

While I've seen places that sell venison and rabbit, it's not that common. (Note: Australian...)

A lot of the commercials around here for "red meat. we were meant to eat it" often seem to classify pork as a red meat. (it doesn't mean I hate one of my coworkers for being vegetarian, not entirely sure if she's outright vegan or just vegetarian)

Regardless, I simply have this clip for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxOpKdmazBo

And this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7qDBCDMSo8 I can picture the guy from the OP actually DOING this. Or someone else doing this >.>