I admit that I am high strung and easily stressed.  Shocking, I know.

I get all worked up about things like holding the door open for someone.  For instance, what do you do if they are not right behind you but you have made eye contact?  And you know that they know that you know they’re coming that way.  Do you stand there and hold it open or not?

Or what about cars that want to merge onto the interstate when you are in the right lane.  Do you speed up and look obnoxious? Do you slow down and annoy the car behind you?  Do you maintain your speed and pretend like the merging car is not giving you the finger evil eye?

What’s a girl to do?

And then, there is the salad bar.  Oh. My. Word.  Seriously, if we could just have a heart to heart for a moment. There are some personal preferences universal understandings when it comes to salad bar etiquette.

1. Keep it moving. Do not stop in front of the olives to make small talk with someone walking by. (The one exception here is if you need to take a picture of the salad bar because you suddenly had an idea for a blog post about salad bar etiquette. Ahem.)
2. Have a plan. Once you pass an item there is no going back.  Do it right the first time.
3. Separation of veggies and fattening goodness. I am so glad that you enjoy the broccoli spears and cauliflower chunks.  Just don’t be dropping them in my cheese and pepperoni buckets.
4. No give-backs. There can be no removal of food from your plate back to the salad bar.  Once it has touched your plate – it is officially your lunch. Enjoy.
5. Keep your head and hair above the sneeze guard at all times. I’m sorry if your arms are short and the banana peppers are way in the back.  I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but…if you can’t reach it – you can’t have it.  For the sake of my salad and my sanity – head and hair away from the food, people.

So, there you go. Now, we can all be friendly at the local family buffet.