Frozen yogurt isn't supposed to be stressful.

You can't pay for good service these days.

This is the realization I have come to after my most recent trip to Yogurtland.  

For those of you unfamiliar with this magical place on earth, Yogurtland is a self-service, pay by the ounce, unlimited sample cup, endless toppings establishment in New Orleans.  In the last week (7 days), I have gone 9 times.  One time I asked my parents to pick me up some yogurt (because I was in bed "sick" on a weekend night), but then, displeased with the composition of the cup, I just went again, by myself, no bra.  When Yogurtland is open, I don't need a man, or cable television, or a job, or a glass of wine, or Colin Firth Movies, or cupcakes, and the list could go on, and on, and on. Yogurtland fills all my life voids.  It. is. that. good.  

HAVING SAID THAT...my relationship with Yogurtland turned a little sour tonight. I couldn't wait to get my little treat after coughing and cursing through 60 minutes of an exercise in humiliation called, "Step Challenge" at my gym tonight.  I went in, got the requisite 10 sample cups, ate $4 worth of free samples, then prepared the cup to purchase.  As I began approaching the "toppings" area, I had a little spring in my step. It's dietetic, after all. 

Sidebar: you see, as a single woman, there are very few things I can look forward to when getting home after the gym.  It's the same routine night after night: open the door, curse myself for NOT keeping my air-conditioning on all day, heat up an unremarkable lean cuisine, 3hrs of cable television, 1hr of netflix, 40 pages of semi-pornographic popular literature, sleep.  So, around the 4th episode of "Keeping up with the Kardashians," when I open my freezer and see that Yogurtland "Hello Kitty" themed cup and spoon I had stored there, it's like the first time R. Kelly met Youtube: Magic.  

So where were we? Oh yes.  I was maniacally pouring, granola, candy nuts and yogurtchips, over my yogurt like a kindergartener.  I am no doubt spilling sh*t EVERYWHERE. That is when I walked up to the yogurtland employee, who by now has come to know me by face.  

Just to set the scene: I am standing there, with a....not insignificant amount of yogurt...wearing workout clothes, feeling REALLY good about myself because I haven't eaten Cheetos in double digit days, with a smiling face waiting to pay for my little treat. 

Yogurtland Employee: Just getting heavier and heavier

Lil Layne: EXCUSE ME?

YE: Your cup.  It just keeps getting heavier. 

LL: I mean, this is my dinner. (lie #1)

YE: No, totally, I just mean, I guess its so good you keep wanting to get more and more every time you come here. 

LL: Right. But I mean, this is (and the following is said very, very, slowly - accentuating each word) replacing my dinner (Perpetuating lie #1, as I just ate 3lbs of steak at my parents house - but if its free, the calories don't count). Also fruit is SO heavy (lie #2. There is no fruit in my cup, unless gummy bears count as a fruit.) Plus I just worked out really hard (lie #3, as I spent more time in my gym class blowing my nose in the back whilst marching in place than I did actually jumping around) and i'm hypoglycemic so... (we'll call this lie #3.5, because even though a doctor has never diagnosed me as this, WebMD has, so it's basically the same thing.) 

YE: (Hello Kitty-esque giggle), no I just mean, I see it all the time. The more often a person comes in here, the more they get in their cup! 

As Cindy Lee - Yogurtland Employee of the Month -  was not adequately grasping the problem with this conversation, rather than devolve into TOTAL Larry David mode, I just threw my card in her face, paid, and left. 

As I write this post, I am reminded that this is not the *first* time someone in my family has had issues with yogurt employees.  (See my father's trip to Pinkberry as Exhibit A). So...maybe I predisposed to be sensitive to issues like this because of my genetic makeup.  

But, having made that caveat, here is my point: managers working in food industries need to have some sensitivity training for their employees. As a weight watchers group leader once told me, eating is a very emotionally loaded experience.  Restaurant and food services employees need to take a page from grocery check-out employees.  You're buying a six-pack, 10 cans vienna sausages, and a single serving slice of pie? The only question you hear is, "will that be paper of plastic?" People at restaurants and high-end fast food establishments are TOO CHATTY. JUST LET ME GET MY FOOD IN SOLITUDE.  Or, if i want to dine alone at a restaurant, let me do that too without making it into something on the scale of the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping. That is all.