The Matter of Buffet Return Awkwardness
A short account of the procedural caution applied to a buffet that has been ordinary again for two years.
The buffet had been open for two years.
She knew this. The signs of it were everywhere: the tongs used without hesitation by everyone else, the stacked plates replenished without ceremony, the serving area treated as the serving area it had always been. The pandemic had ended. The buffet had reopened. The buffet had continued reopening every Sunday brunch since.
She approached it with more procedural caution than the food itself required.
The first pass was for reconnaissance. She assessed the layout, identified the items she wanted, and noted where the salad ended and the main dishes began. This was not unusual behavior. It was, perhaps, slightly more systematic than the situation demanded.
Someone approaches a buffet with more procedural caution than the food itself requires.
She returned for the second pass. She took a plate. She served herself with a tong technique that involved more wrist rotation than strictly necessary and a brief pause before each item as if consulting an internal checklist. The internal checklist was not a COVID checklist. She did not think of it that way. It was simply the way she approached buffets now.
One small physical adjustment. Nothing notable.
The person behind her paused slightly before reaching the tongs. Then the person behind that person. The adjustment was ambient. It became the rhythm of the queue.
The activity is ordinary again while the body still treats it as negotiable.
Nobody announced the etiquette. There was no sign. The etiquette was: brief pause, deliberate selection, one item at a time. The etiquette was in force at every station by the time the room was half-full.
The buffet remained open. The procedure remained in effect. Both things were true and neither required the other.