This seems a mild affront to one's sensibilities, but I must lead off with it because, as insignificant as it seems, I'm almost convinced there's a food service conspiracy to continue this godforsaken trend possibly just to personally annoy me. Specifically me. Like there's a food service company out there someone called "You Know Felix? Yeah, Fuck That Guy" and they train their employees to play havoc with my good nature.
I am unsure as to the amount of time spent in a restaurant not chewing versus the amount of time spent on premises chewing, if there's an algorithm to figure it out or anything like that. What I do know is that the moment I've got my craw stuffed with buffalo chicken or fried onion sticks and a medium-well burger with pepper jack cheese, my server will appear like a goblin summoned from the Labyrinth to ask how I'm enjoying my meal. So I'll sit there with cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk who has hoarding issues and try to gurgle forth some kind of appropriate response, and I never know why. It may be the desperate look on the server's face that suggests they need my approval or some ingrained brain malfunction of my own that triggers the need to reply to inane and unimportant questions regardless of the circumstances, but I'll say something insightful like "Glark," and they nod and race off to give someone else a watery Pepsi and a Frito pie.
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