Ok -- you ever notice in resturants that when they're setting out the table, they'll do a quick wipedown of the table, then set out placemats and crap? They always put the cups face down, and always on the table [instead of on the placemats] therefore, your cup's rim -- as in, the part you PUT YOUR MOUTH ON is festering happily amongst the random germies of the table and whatever cretinous soul last ate there.

I'm not saying that resturants are dirty blucky places where only the foulest germs would dare to fester and colonize. No. Instead, I'm commenting on Why the hell do they put the cups upside down? Is there a reason for this?

One might think that perhapse there is a ledgend dating back to the dawn of time, where Confucious decided that if he didn't put his cup on the table upside-down, then his magical feng shui spirit energy, instead of being directed into the bedroom, would take a wrong turn at the unfortunate cup and head straight down the toilet instead. Thus, Confucious needed to please the water spirits by placing his cup upside-down, thus the water spirits in the toilet would NOT suck up his magical feng shui, and instead direct it to the magical spirit-eating dust bunnies under the bed.

Of course if you're one of those people who doesn't buy into feng shui, you might need a different approach to this question to appease your sense of curiosity. So, maybe it's actually for a sanitary reason, and not, as I so blindly assumed, a way to contaminate you with Magical resturant germs, which, upon ingestion, cause and individual to start craving the $14 dessert, even after he's consumed a 7-course meal.

For the sake of argument, lets say that this is a resturant freqented by families. Families, especially ones like my relatives, who haven't figured out where babies come from, usually have a flock of little sproglets sproinking about. If said sproglet is fresh out of the package [sometimes people will take them out to dinner when they're still sticky and the mother is still tied down to her bed with iv tubes and velcro]. So lets say that this parental unit is walking around trying to calm a screaming sproglet by patting it on the back, and the sproglet makes a small batchuck over the parents shoulder and -- get this -- into an unattended glass that is sitting there right-side up.

Now, one might argue that sproglets usually emit what-was-once-food in such large ammounts that a person wonders how much barf can really fit inside one little sproglet, and what the hell else is that kid hiding in there, because damn if those aren't most of it's vital organs strewn across the floor. The answer is, of course, that sproglets are tricky little bastards.

Every so often, a sproglet will emit a little "Pweeeh", which is not as much as a "BREEEEAAACCCCCHHHKKK!!!" but a little more than a burp. The parent, already deafened by the aforementioned screaming, will not notice this ejection of mashed-prunes, and will carry on with his life. He, lucky soul, is unaware that the person who sits back down to that right-side-up glass may or may not notice the unquestionably gross splodge in it, especailly if that person is drinking iced tea.

In closing, babies know more about feng shui than we do, and I guess the correct thing to do in any situation would be to skip the glass and go straight for the pitcher, especially if the liquid inside starts with a "B" and rhymes with "eer"

-shuu

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This is the way we skip and skip, lalala, lalala -

THE JUSTICE HOLE; STANDBY FOR SUPER CREDITS -

mumble mice of the fourth planet -

I am the person pouring my beer into your bunny slippers -