Curiosity Killed My Appetite

There are certain things you should do at least once in your life. For example, I've seen the Grateful Dead live in concert, I've taken a trapeze lesson, I've hiked Tuckerman Ravine, and I've gone skydiving. I'm not sure that eating at Old Country Buffet (in the Watertown Mall) is in the same league as those, but now that I've done it, I can safely say that I will not be doing it again.

Yes, last night I went with one of my coworkers to the OCB after weeks and weeks of discussion. It started casually one day when we both mentioned that we had never been but had always been curious about trying it. The mass-produced food, the clientele, the unhealthiness of eating from a sort-of communal trough — how could we have resisted for so long? After that, no amount of convincing could talk us out of it — and plenty of people tried. We even downloaded the nutritional content and that didn't sway us. Nor did the fact that there was free Chinese food at the office before we left. We were determined to go, and we did.

It's sort of a scary thing knowing the nutritional content of the food you're about to get before you eat it, but we looked at the meal this way: It only cost us $11.69 each, and we knew this would probably be the only time we ate there, so why not try as much as we could? After all, I had already put on some looser-fitting pants as a precaution. I won't say who specifically ate what, but here's a sampling of what was on our plates: mac and cheese, a taco, fried shrimp, rolls, steak, barbecue pork, beans, carrots, roasted chicken, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, nachos and cheese, popcorn chicken, and spaghetti. There was even a "mystery meat" at one point (although, that may have been eggplant). Suffice it to say, all the major food groups were represented. For dessert we had chocolate cream pie, cookie pie, Jello, cheesecake, apple crisp, fudge, chocolate bread pudding, chocolate cake, and a rice krispy treat. If you're really interested in the calorie or fat count, you can click on this link and add it all up, but I'm sick just thinking about how much we ate — aren't you?

Admittedly, the food was not as bad as we anticipated it would be — though some items were definitely better than others, and it should be noted that our expectations were pretty low (it's not like we expected a Las Vegas–style buffet or anything). And we wished there had been a greater selection of food (What? No corn dogs? No salisbury steak? No grilled cheese sandwiches? And most egregiously, no chocolate pudding with that gross "skin" on it? What a bummer). We also probably could have eaten more than we did, but as Ros said at one point, "I decided not to repeat anything because I figured it would just repeat itself on its own later." That just about says it all right there.

So yeah. Cross this one off the list. No need to do that again.