The only thing worse than taking my kids to a restaurant is taking them to a buffet. There is so much potential for disaster there that it gives me little chill bumps when one of them mentions the word "buffet" in my house. They all love it, though. Once in a while I take a sedative and tag along while we hit the all-you-can-eat near my house.

We braved it the other night. It wasn't my idea, and I tried to protest, but I got outvoted. I toyed with the idea of faking a headache and sending them without me, but I didn't dare leave the four of them unsupervised in public. My husband has a much different idea than I do of what is acceptable behavior in public. So, I got in the car and went.

We parked, paid, and found a table. I sent my husband and son ahead to scout out the buffet while I got the girls situated. Bryan turned to walk away, but stopped two tables away. "Hey, Mom, hold my ball."

In the time it took me to process what he had said, he tossed a dirty, gross tennis ball at me. This ball was nasty. It looked like a team of Great Danes used it as the puck in a game of mud hockey. When he tossed it, I missed it. Hey, I'm not athletic, and he didn't even give me a warning - just tossed it mid-sentence. So the ball hits the floor behind me, bounces once, then rolls underneath a booth against the wall. Of course, it was occupied. That's a good thing because nobody wanted to see me trying to crawl under the booth to retrieve the ball. It's a bad thing because the little boy at the table did crawl under and retrieve it. After he gave me the ball back, his mother made a face and whispered (loudly), "Go wash your hands. That was disgusting." Thanks, Bryan.

I put the ball in my purse and sat down, dirty hands and all. The boys were back with food, so I did a quick cleaning of hands with a diaper wipe (of course, that's what they're for) and went to fix plates for myself and the girls. By the time I got back to the table, both of the guys were heading for round two. It never fails to amaze me how much they can eat.

Bryan came back with a plate of nachos. They were good looking nachos. Take a close look at the picture. Crispy corn chips, tasty taco meat, yummy shredded cheese, spicy crushed red tortillas, and... care to wager a guess what the other thing on that heap is?

"Ummm, hey Bryan. What's that?"

"Nachos!"

"No, I mean that." I pointed to the brownish blob on top of the pile.

"Refried beans!" Still with enthusiasm, too.

"Sweetie, I don't think that's refried beans."

He didn't believe me. I made him let me take a picture of the nachos before he tried them in case he barfed. He shrugged off my caution and took a big old honking bite of nacho. His face went from surprise (even though I warned him) to confusion to disgust.

Cinnamon butter. That's what he put on his nachos. The nacho section of the bar was right next to a tub of baked sweet potatoes. Cinnamon butter is fantastic on sweet potatoes, but I guess not so much on the nachos. The server came by to clear plates later and eyeballed the full plate of nachos. To his credit, he didn't ask, but I had to volunteer why they didn't get eaten. He laughed almost as hard as I did.

By this point the girls were done eating. I got them ice cream. Molly snorted hers in 4 seconds and wanted more. I don't think so, kiddo. She got out of her chair and stood behind it. She stuck her arm through this hole in the back of it. Who the hell knows why she does some of the things she does, but this was her bright idea of the day. Predictably, she got it stuck right above the elbow. I contemplated leaving her there, but she was starting to scream. I pried her loose and told her to sit down. She didn't, so I told her if she was going to stand up that she should just do this:

It seemed like a good idea to me. Every parent needs a set of portable stocks to lock their kids in when they're out in public. I briefly considered marketing the idea, but two seconds after taking that picture, she got stuck again. This time she got stuck pretty tightly in there. I sent my husband to find some lubrication to help slide her elbow out of the hole. He brought back cinnamon refried butter beans. Before I was forced to grease her up like a sweet potato, our server came to the rescue. He tilted the chair and she easily pulled her arm out.

"You look like you've done that before."

"You'd be surprised how many kids get their arms stuck in those chairs."

I eyed him sceptically. "Are you just saying that to make me feel better for the whole 'Mother of the Year award that I'll never be recieving' thing?"

He actually convinced me that this is not the worst he'd seen in that restaurant. Right at that moment, we all heard a weird sucking sound. The server, my husband and myself all turned our heads toward the sound, expecting to see one of the kids doing something horrendous. Nothing could have prepared me for what we actually saw.

There was an older man at the next table, holding his dentures in his hand. He was inspecting them for food scraps, then sucking his finds off. He literally licked them clean, right there in the middle of the dining room. When he was done, he tucked them neatly into his shirt pocket and picked up his coffee cup as nonchalantly as if he had done nothing more than fold his napkin.

The server looked at me, nodding his head a little toward the other table, and said, "Case in point. A stuck arm is nothing around here."

No freaking kidding.