Sometimes the restaurants were so busy and hopping you had to wait for a table, and sometimes they would give you a plastic buzzer to let you know when it was your turn to be seated.

Everything had a buzz. Food has less fillers. The waitresses and waiters looked and talked like you.

You'd enjoy the time with your family. Nobody was staring at a phone during the meal. You didn't care about the news or the market and you knew that whatever was going on maybe you would catch it later that evening or maybe even tomorrow morning on the way into work.

There was a buzz in the air. This was relaxation time. It was a special experience. It was a, dare I say it, "fun" experience. Inside the restaurant you were in a different world. A carefree world.

Now you go to a restaurant and it's a dystopian hellhole. All of the food is nothing but fillers. Every restaurant has 100 bar drinks it seems like and they are prominently featured at the beginning of the menu instead of the end. You look around and the families are gone. Now it's just groups of adults. You rarely if ever see any kids. You see groups of shiftless, angry people, staring at phones, guzzling down alcholic fruit beverages and greedily slurping up sysco slop. If something goes wrong, you might hear some backtalk to the waitress/waiter. The service is slow and terrible. The waiter is probably helping to assemble to go orders. Nobody cares about anything. If there's something wrong with your food the waiter can't do anything about it because they don't even speak the same language as the kitchen staff. The A/C isn't on low enough, or it's broken. It's hot. The plastic cups appear cloudy and chipped.

You wonder if it's time to just give up and order a Victory gin.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5537534&forum_id=2#47724477)

Everything was better when you were a kid.

Being an adult is pure unadultered hell 24/7.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5537534&forum_id=2#47724491)

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5537534&forum_id=2#47724500)

you have to go back to like the 70s to see slightly less industrialization in the food supply. Coke was still made with cane sugar, McD's used beef tallow, etc. things were slightly less chemically and industrial, but even then, not by much.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5537534&forum_id=2#47724526)