Why all the Golden Corral hate? Golden Corral is honestly better than a fucking movie.

I have a friend named Bruce. Bruce looks to be some kind of honest-to-God pirate at first
glance, and I mean Captain Jack Sparrow's crew pirate, and the ornery, mean old fucking pirate
you'd never, ever want to mess with because he'd bite your God-damned nose off and eat it. He's
also wildly into K-pop, choreographs his own dance routines to it, and in the last year or two
has started just basically eating like a Korean, which apparently means shitloads of vegetables
and cabbage. Anyway, Bruce goes to Golden Corral like 2x a week, which I thought was kind of strange
due to his new health kick, so finally I asked him about it.

"Dude," he said. "Golden Corral has a shitload of vegetables, and their cabbage is great. But
you're missing the point. You don't go to Golden Corral just for the food. It's fucking dinner theater."

And you know what? He's right. For $12 you can sit and watch some of the most hilarious, downright
hellishly gluttonous behavior you will see outside the Plane of Fat in the Demonic Abyss. I went with
him one time and laughed so hard at some of the shit on display that now I go with him about once a
month, get a big plate of steak and another big plate of salad, stake out a spot where you can see
most of the buffets (and oh for fucking sure the CHOCOLATE WONDERFALL) and just observe the kind of
unbelievably self-indulgent (and self-destructive) shit that would make a European or Southeast Asian's
person head explode off their shoulders in horror and make someone with a "sick sad world" sense of
humor laugh their ass off.

Someone, say, like me.

For example, the very first time I went with Bruce I was witness to "the recon." This is a real thing,
and what I am about to describe is not an isolated incident, no sirree. Humongously fat people will
literally go scout the buffet. Now, I think we all do this to some extent at a buffet, in the "Hmm,
what do they have to eat here?" glance-while-walking-to-the-table sense, but this is done with military
precision, people. I've watched with my own eyes three people, all of whom were 300 lbs+, meet briefly
and talk, then split up and go to the buffets, carefully eyeballing each selection, lips moving, fingers
pointing, as if cataloging the unearthly delights that await them, then fucking meeting back up in the
same place to discuss what they saw and plan an attack. I'm serious. They were like 10 feet away.

"Guys it looks like the fried chicken tonight is coming out pretty fast, pretty sure that stuff's going
to be good, but the rotisserie is just kind of hanging out. Pulled pork was kind of crusty but I think
if we dug down a bit there's good stuff there. There was a bit of a crust on the edge of the brown gravy
and someone dropped some fucking broccoli in it but the white gravy's looking fine. Outside of that, hot
bar A looks good. And of course the bourbon chicken looks good as always."

"Fantastic. Well, the guy cooking the steaks told me they are busting open a new box in about 20 minutes,
so we should probably lay off that until then. I noticed there was a lot of bacon in the green beans right
now so that should probably be one of our first stops. The mac and cheese tonight also looks fucking
delicious, it's got a nice crust unlike that bullshit last week when it was practically yellow water, so we
need to move on that. It looks like they recently changed out the taco stuff, especially the nacho cheese,
it looks brand new, so, take that for what it's worth."

"Well I've got bad news guys, from what I could see it looks like tonight's a no chocolate cake night,
they only have that fucking one that has those fake cherries on top, and we all know how that fucks things up."

>groans all around<

"But it's not that big a deal because they just put out rice krispies with chocolate coating and the girl
said they've got tons of them. They've also got those sugar cookies and some fudge brownies that look all
right, and all the other pie shit they usually have."

"OK, so green beans, fried chicken, the mac and cheese, the white gravy, those are tonight's superstars.
Let's go."

I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. I expected a fucking Wonder Twin powers-esque ring bump at this point, but instead
they just all fled to a plate dispenser and began loading the fuck out of their plates. It really reminds
me of nothing so much as when people like, discuss what's going on with their favorite sports teams.
Except with food.

This is also when I first experienced the phenomenon of the "multiplate."

Now, your average person will take a plate to the buffet, fill it with food, and go back to their table and
eat. But, you see, that person understands that when they are done eating, if they want more, there will be
more food available at that time. But the multiplater wants to hedge its bets. What if, between that first
and second trip to the buffet, the restaurant suddenly ran completely the fuck out of food? Like, not even
mints by the cash register or gum in the quarter machines? WHAT THEN? Your deliciousness per second
(DPS... sorry) will go down!

It doesn't bear thinking about. Now it's unlikely, gentlemen, but not impossible, so as we are smart
consumers, we're going to guard against the possibility. So let's each go get three complete plates of food
and come back to the table.

Now I'm not talking a meal plate and a salad plate, as I mentioned before I myself do that every time I
go to watch this... whatever the fuck it is, Theater of the Grotesque, I guess. But just imagine for a
moment going up to the buffet and getting a plate loaded down with actual fucking rib-sticking food. 3-4
chicken wings and legs, a big-ass helping of mac and cheese, some mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans,
two corns on the cob, and a yeast roll or two, then taking it back to your table. Time to eat, right?
WRONG. DIPSHIT. WHAT IF THEY RUN OUT OF FOOD WHILE YOU ARE EATING YOU GOD-DAMNED NINNY? WHAT ABOUT YOUR DPS?

So you just set this completely full plate down and go get another one, and again you just completely fill
the fuck out of it with food. A couple of steaks, a pile of pulled pork, a rice mountain topped with sugary
chicken (MOUNT BOURBON), and a couple of smoked sausages with nacho cheese on them, then you take that
back to your table.

You now have enough food at your table, JUST ON YOUR PLATES, to feed an entire platoon of ten year-olds who
have been playing all day. Time to sit down and pig the fuck out. WRONG. DIPSHIT. WHAT IF THEY RUN OUT OF
FOOD NOW? YOU'VE ONLY GOT LITERALLY TEN OR FIFTEEN THOUSAND CALORIES ON YOUR PLATE, YOU'RE PRACTICALLY
GOING TO STARVE TO DEATH. IF YOU DON'T KEEP YOUR DPS UP WE'LL HAVE TO KICK YOU OUT OF THE GUILD DUDE.

So again you set your second completely full plate down and go back AGAIN. I dunno what the fuck you get this
time, since you already have basically everything they serve, but on one multiplate I watched a dude walk(?)
to the salad bar and create the following salad:

1 giant ladle of blue cheese dressing directly onto the plate
Multiple giant scoops of shredded cheese on top of this
Multiple giant scoops of those weird ham cube-bits on top of this
Multiple giant scoops of bacon bits on top of this
Multiple giant scoops of boiled egg crumbles on top of this
An enormous pile of croutons
A giant scoop of mushrooms (I think this "made it healthy" because mushrooms are like a fish or something and
fish is negative calorie superfood?)
2 giant ladles of blue cheese dressing on top

Just think about that for a fucking minute. OK, frankly, it sounds pretty delicious, but holy shit how horrid
does something like that have to be for you? Imagine trying to shit that out a few hours down the line. But
now you have your third plate, and so now you can at least quiet the yammering fear that you won't get to eat
everything in the entire God-damned place before it closes down for the night, and at last you can finally
start to eat.

Again, this is not fantasy. I've watched this multiple times. I've seen a woman so fat she had to use a walker
to move sit by herself at a 4-person table and completely cover the surface of it with plates of food before
she started eating, and she cleaned every last one of them. It has the same uneasy, somehow alien fascination
of seeing a car wreck, or a really fucked-up porn where the chick is wearing spider prosthetics and hissing all
the fucking time. You're like, am I really supposed to be entertained by this? I kind of feel bad, and sort of
weird, but... I mean, just fucking look at it. It's brutal, unchained nihilism unfettered from any concept of
moderation or shame or self-preservation and frankly it's kind of fascinating watching someone deliberately say
"Fuck any sort of a comfortable life, WHERE IS THE THOUSAND ISLAND CONTAINER?"

So what I'm trying to say is, Golden Corral really is cheap dinner theater, and believe it or not you can
actually eat there without consuming ten thousand+ calories if you just eat a steak strip or two and some salad
or potatoes or something.

Oh, and did I mention the Chocolate Wonderfall? Well, frankly, if you dare to use that fucking thing I salute you,
because it wouldn't surprise me to find a live octopus in it. This is already too long for a dumb post about
obsessive fatties at Golden Corral, but if I get a chance later I might type up some of the shit I've seen
people do with that thing.

BTW as a disclaimer I'm a 220-lb dude (6'2" though so I don't look too monstrous) who has spent his whole life
losing and then gaining weight. I know it's extremely tough to do, and it's REALLY tough to keep doing and maintain
it, but there's a big difference between "I'm overweight, try my best, run 4 times a week, and occasionally
overindulge in an entire tub of scoop n' eat cheesecake filling" and sticking your face to the fucking ears into
the Chocolate Wonderfall and sucking like Cygnus X-1 till security gets there with the the bullropes.

I hope someone liked reading that as much as I liked writing it.

* * * * * * * *

OK, so, as promised, the CHOCOLATE WONDERFALL.

That's right, a non-stop flowing river of chocolate decadence.

I have no idea how it's legal to have this thing. At first glance it's like, "Yeah, that's kind of cool, looks tasty,"
but then on further reflection you begin to think of terms like "vector" and "transmission" and "patient zero" and
start to reconsider. They don't let restaurants serve food "family style" (big bowls and serving spoons in a common
dish on the table) and this seems like family style on steroids. I dunno.

Bruce told me about the CHOCOLATE WONDERFALL one night on the way to GC. "Dude, they have like this chocolate river
thing now, you'll see."

"Is it good?"

"No, dude. No. Just watch."

Now, they have a person who stands in the dessert section who is supposed to, I guess, guard the CHOCOLATE WONDERFALL?
But they are not always there, and occasionally disappear into the back of the restaurant to do whatever it is that
is done back there. This is as effective as any guard who is randomly gone. But in case user 'goldencorral' is in
this thread, I will say that every gross/unsanitary thing I've seen regarding the CHOCOLATE WONDERFALL has taken
place when this person, who I will call Deputy Sweeto, was gone.

The way people are actually supposed to engage with the CHOCOLATE WONDERFALL: take a piece of something that would
be good with chocolate, stick it on a skewer, stick it under the chocolate, you are done. Put it on a plate so it
doesn't drop all over the place, go back to your seat, eat, enjoy, go home. Fifty return trips to the CHOCOLATE
WONDERFALL optional, but necessary.

So here are some things I've seen people do with the CHOCOLATE WONDERFALL. Note that the real threat to the
integrity of the CHOCOLATE WONDERFALL is not adults, who although they may do disgusting and unhealthy things to it
(such as using, say, actual fucking fudge as the material to be chocolate-covered) most of them are conscientious
enough to not be unsanitary.

Oh, but unattended children, they Do. Not. Give. A. Fuck. And believe me, at GC there's going to be some unattended
children, because mommy and daddy are trying to get their DPS up people, and paying attention to their precious
living things might result in someone else getting more of the mac and cheese crust covering by delaying their
second multiplate.

Chocolate chicken leg: This is what I saw the first time I went there and just before the only time I contemplated
chocolating something up. Just as I was about to get up, I watched a little kid, probably about 6-7 years old,
walk up to the CHOCOLATE WONDERFALL and stick a fried chicken leg in it.

Now, frankly, this is fucking hilarious. Just really think for a minute about seeing this, the little dude just
staggering over to the chocolate and plunging a fried chicken leg into it. There's no question at this point that
little bits of fried batter are getting knocked off by the power of the WONDERFALL and merging with the chocolate,
and I know there's nothing I'd like better on a strawberry than some soggy, chocolate-infused fried chicken coating.
So already Bruce and I are laughing so fucking hard we're practically injuring ourselves, but this gets better.
After thoroughly chocolating this chicken leg, the kid yanks it out from under the WONDERFALL, makes no attempt
to put a plate under it or anything, and turns and walks away from the thing, trailing the chicken leg at his side
like a caveman's club.

Well, it is dripping chocolate. Not a lot, but some, and no one is paying attention to it, so people are walking
through this liquid chocolate and just smearing it all over the place and making a hellish, God-awful mess.
Admittedly, it's just around that dessert section, which is tile, but still. Little dude walks back to his table,
looks at the chicken leg with some consternation, and then just throws it under the table on the floor.

I've seen a dude take a plate of bourbon chicken (which, to the uninitiated, is basically chicken bits in a brown
fructose sauce... but okay, it's delicious too), walk over to the CHOCOLATE WONDERFALL, and use a spoon to
completely cover his already-soaked-in-fucking-sugary-solution chicken pieces in milk chocolate. Ol' Deputy Sweeto
was there for this one, but didn't say anything because, well, what the guy was doing wasn't unsanitary or harming
the fountain or anything, it was just, you know, gross beyond belief at the cellular level. As he walked away
Deputy Sweeto caught me staring. We locked eyes across the restaurant, shared a brief look of "What have we seen?
Others have not...", and then went about our normal business, strangers connected by a shared glimpse into the
Maw of Chicken Madness.

Dude took his chocolate bourbon chicken over to the buffet, put a little rice on the side, and went and ate the
whole fucking thing. Frankly I was tempted to go get a chunk or two of bourbon chicken and do the same thing myself
just to see what the fuck that could possibly taste like and why someone would eat a plate of it, but then I
realized that I will at some point want to look at myself in the mirror and feel proud of my life as a human being
and so I didn't.

CHOCOLATE WONDERSPRAY: Occasionally you will get someone who is not satisfied with a single layer of chocolate on
their treat, and they will stand for a moment and let the chocolate on their tastybit harden a smidge and put some
more chocolate on it. OK so by occasionally I mean "almost everyone does this." I don't consider this horrid
gluttony unless you're up there for fucking five minutes and walk away with a chocolate baseball on a stick
(but yes, I've seen people stand up there and do that for literally five minutes before, I think they are mainly
just trying to drip as much chocolate as possible onto the plate they hold beneath it, "Whoops, now I guess I
have to eat all this too, mustn't waste!"). But this little girl takes the cake for that shit. If standing there
and maybe gently blowing on your chocolate-covered tastybit allows more chocolate, then you know what would be better?

Blow on it like you're Superman putting out the fucking Towering Inferno, that's what!

The little girl dunks her krispie, pulls it out, and proceeds to blow on it like Superman put- you get it. Well,
this results in little chocolate drops being blown all over the fucking place. The sheer violence of the blowing is
also denuding her little treat of chocolate, so she sticks it in again and does the same thing, with the same results.
So again. And again. At this point the area near her is beginning to resemble something that has seen the touch of
several shotgun shells full of chocolate birdshot. At last her mother saw what she was doing and came and got her, and
then, in an unusual and heartening twist, called for Deputy Sweeto and tried to help clean up. Your average mom at GC
would have grabbed her child, looked around anxiously, and then slunk away. So high five, moral and responsible mom!

What the fuck are you doing OH NAW DUDE DUDE NAW CHRIST: Short and sweet and horrible. Man gets soup bowl. Man walks to
CHOCOLATE WONDERFALL, fills soup bowl 3/4 full. Puts rice krispie on top. Walks back to table, crushes rice krispie
with spoon, begins eating pure liquid chocolate with minor crunchy bits, and I lose faith in the future of the world.

* * * * * * * *

So. Babies at Golden Corral.

First, let's just state that I love babies. They are nature's little Jokers, agents of chaos who just do not give a fuck.
About anything. They don't give a fuck about your rules, your controls, your social mores, or your laws. They will shit
on the floor like it's nothing. They are gonna do what they want, and when they find something they like to do they are
going to do it, and they will do it as long as possible and the longer they do it the faster they will do it and the harder
they will laugh. Seriously, they are about the best free entertainment in the world.

Literally the funniest thing in the world to me is to be in a crowded public place and have a baby start doing that kind of
crying where they are just screaming at the top of their fucking lungs with tears running down their faces, occasionally
pausing and falling almost completely silent to gulp in another big lungful of air before going back to 180 decibels while
the parent looks around frantically and begs them to stop. I mean, seriously, that's the funniest shit in the world. Bonus
points if this happens at Golden Corral and Trailer Park Romeo & Juliet (see below) look at the shrieking, obviously
infuriated child, shrug like, "Zis my porblem? Sheeeit izza baby, he's justa cryn," before going back to DPSing as hard as
possible. Holy shit I'm seriously LMAO right now just thinking about it.

Now, I am a childless man. There is a really good reason for this, which is that I am a selfish asshole who can't comprehend
not being able to wake up and just do whatever I want all day without being burdened by another living thing's requirements.
Shit, I can barely take care of my snapping turtle, who only requires some sort of flesh be tossed in his tank every week or so.

But that said, even I understand at the atomic level that when you actually do have a child, that child must take precedence
over absolutely everything else in your entire life including anything you may have wanted. You have to nurture it, guide it,
protect it, take care of it, watch over it, and teach it how to be a good person who will contribute to society.

Unless you take it to Golden Corral. At this point, a magical alchemy occurs and you no longer have any responsibility for
your baby, and you should just let it run free and learn on its own things like "steam tables are hot" and "a handful of
ranch dressing feels funny."

You see a lot of kids at Golden Corral, sticking chicken legs in CHOCOLATE WONDERFALLS and things, and you do see a lot of
babies also. Now when I say baby, I basically mean a being anywhere from womb-age to young enough it can barely walk
unassisted and does that terrifying hard-lean-forward baby stagger while you cringe and simultaneously fear/long for the
inevitable faceplant. Young enough to still have to stick in a highchair, basically.

Quite a few couples with kids you will see at Golden Corral fit the stereotype I think of as "Trailer Park Romeo and
Juliet." This means:

1 partner very large, usually extremely disheveled, with a wild eye and an aggressive demeanor who speaks very loudly
and has no problem yelling threats of physical violence to either partner or child, like "IMMA FUCKIN BEAT YOU" at full
volume in the midst of a crowded restaurant. If this partner is the female they will always, always have at least one large
facial mole with multiple black bristles sticking from it.

1 partner whisper thin, hellishly passive, instinctively flinching, watery-eyed, with a sick smile and a completely
whipped and beaten-down aura coming off them in discernible waves. If this partner is the male they will always, always be
sporting a disgusting pubestache with three very prominent hairs longer than the surrounding pubes which have obviously
been cultivated with love and pride.

People say stereotypes are the language of hate, but they become stereotypes by being repeatedly true over centuries.

So anyway, these are the kind of people who will trail 3-4 kids from ages 1-6 into a Wal-mart and turn to the 6 year-old
and say things like, "NOW LITTLE BECKY YOU WATCH YER SISTERS OK" and then walk off to the bathroom and leave them alone,
or think nothing of knocking a kid to the floor when the least bit irritated.

To put it more plainly, abominable genetic misfit monsters who should never have been allowed to breed and shouldn't be
entrusted with the welfare of a human child. Oh, but they have them, and by the bucketload, and then they take them...
to Golden Corral.

Oh and before I say anything else YES, I know what I am about to describe sucks ass for the server. I'm well aware of this.
I tip extremely well when I go to any place like this because I know the poor people working there aren't making dick and
are specifically having to deal with shit like this, so rage against that machine somewhere else.

If I had a baby, and I took the baby to Golden Corral, I know exactly the steps I would take. Here they are, in order:

Put infant in high chair.
Go get food when infant is safe.
Bring infant back some small piece of appropriate food they can gnaw on, if they are old enough to do so.
Occasionally feed infant small safe bits of food off my own plate.

Parents, is this reasonable? I hope so. Here is what I would not do:

Get infant a plate completely full of nacho cheese sauce and top with some chips.
Place on highchair tray in front of infant.
Ignore infant as it goes buck fucking "samurai wild" on the incredibly inappropriate thing before it.

So, you know how when a baby does something it thinks is amusing, like, say, lightly slaps a stuffed animal and you go,
"Ow!" and it laughs? What happens next? Well, the baby is amused, and it wants more amusement, so it will slap the stuffed
animal again. Harder. And faster. If it continues to be amused, it will continue to do this. Harder. And faster. Again.
And again. Until it's a little sped-up blur of slapping and hysterical giggling. It's practically a law of nature, you
could probably make an equation for it.

(Baby amusement) = (Force of strikes)(Speed of strikes)

Something like that. Note that term A only gets bigger if terms B and C constantly increase, and term A must increase
because FUN FOR THE FUN GOD! So, now, imagine putting a full plate of viscous canned cheddar sauce before a baby.
What the fuck do you think is going to happen?

Well, you can guess. Baby stuck its hands in the cheese, sucked some cheese off its hands, and eventually came to the
realization that by sort of hitting the cheese, it could cause an amusing pattern/feeling/spatter. The baby looked at
his own cheese-laden hand, fascinated, and then he laughed.

That laugh was the key. The equation had begun. There was no stopping it now. Across the room, I nudged Bruce. "Shit's
about to get real, bro." He looked up from his mountain of cabbage and roots and other leafy shit and saw where I was looking.

"Oh fuck yes, they gave it nacho cheese, how God-damned dumb are they? They gave it a whole plate!" This said in the same
tones you'd use to say something like, "It is El Dorado, a whole city made of solid gold!" Man I love that guy, he's awesome.

Now that first baby cheese-slap was just an experiment. We've all seen it, and you all know exactly what I mean. "What is
this? What does it feel like? How does it respond to my power?" But once baby has figured out that A)cheese isn't fighting
back and B)hey that felt funny and C)things around me turn orange! there was no turning back.

"I am Golden Corral's reckoning. Here to end the borrowed time you've all been living on."

A second slap landed in the plate of nacho cheese. Significantly harder. Significantly more cheese went flying. Already at
this point Bruce and I are laughing our asses off, because just these two slaps by themselves have made a hellish mess,
baby is covered in cheese, cheese is everywhere, mom and dad are DPSing and so don't have time to pay attention to their
precious child, and you can just see where this is going already. See this in your mind, friends, the child's arm speeding
up, harder and faster each time, the child giggling, its arm turning into a little pinwheel of destruction.

>SLAP<
Cheese flies.
>SLAP<
Cheese flies.
>SLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAP<
FUCKING CHEDDARCAUST

There's fucking cheese everywhere. The kid looks like they took a nacho shower, there's cheese in his fucking hair, and I'm
not talking an isolated drop of cheese, no sir, I'm talking "Fuck it shave the baby, there's no way we're getting this out"
cheese-in-hair. The area on the floor around baby's highchair looks like someone murdered a Taco Bell with a power drill.

Mom and dad don't give a fuck. "CURRR-TIS!" mom says, affectionate and exasperated. "Why'd you do that?"

Uh, maybe it's because you gave something without the current capacity for rational thought the equivalent of a food WMD,
lady, just guessing. So after seeing the ELE-level mess her kid had made, Momma Fats just moves the cratered nacho plate away
(which she ended up eating, a common enough fat person justification, "Oh honey do YOU want a giant plate of food you can't
possibly eat OH I GUESS I WILL HAVE TO FINISH THAT FOR YOU CAN'T WASTE") and handed the kid a fucking chicken nugget.

This mess was so awesome that the server for that section literally called over multiple other servers to see it.

- Jonathon Spectre