I love expensive restaurants, but some things just don't fly.

I eat out a lot. I know what I like, and I like a good meal. I recently went out to an Italian restaurant, and, unfortunately, I must have misread the menu. (I can't remember, but it may have been in Italian.) Because I accidentally ordered a pasta dish with shrimp in it. Well, I didn't really want to send it back since it was my fault afterall. And, frankly, I don't trust waiters in situations like that. If I had sent it back, I would have ended up worrying that they spat in my food. So, instead, I resolved to pick out the little pinkish shrimpies one by one. Not quite kosher, but good enough for me.

I'm glad I had my camera with me, because as I started to peer over this dish I got a little annoyed about something other than my ordering snaffoo: the plate was freakin' empty. For $20, I got this ridiculous plate consisting primarily of spattered parmesan on porcelain. As I looked at it longer, this is what I began to see:

I'm hungry. I want food. I don't want to look at it for long. I'm going to eat it in a moment anyway. The worst part is, of the twenty bucks I paid for the meal, this is what I paid for:

I don't like empty space on the plate. I don't need a plate that big unless you're going to fill it with food. And, if not, I don't want to pay entree prices for a meal that would fit on my bread plate. This kind of thing is fun when I'm ordering dessert, but disappointing when I'm in need of nourishment.

All right. So I stopped being annoyed after 25 seconds, ordered a big salad, ate my meal with lots of bread, it was okay, and I left happy. But I began to recall some of my other experiences dining out and what I'd learned from them.

In all the places I've eaten, I've gotten to taste some truly excellent food. I don't think I would have had this opportunity had I not known the rules to follow in those settings. I think the higher up the class chain you go, the harder it gets and so I figure the hardest one for most people must be high society. Being the humanitarian that I am, I've written some guidelines to help out.

Whenever they serve you something on a bed of lettuce, eat the lettuce first. If you can't eat what they're serving because you're on a diet or don't want to, it's cool to eat just the lettuce. They appreciate it when you do things for the sake of good health, or taste.

If you are given numerous forks, always use the bigger (therefore superior) one, and be sure to let the wait staff know that they've accidentally given you an extraneous kiddie fork.

Slurp. It's the #1 way to show polite appreciation, internationally.

They are totally cool with your talking with your mouth full. Powerful people hate waiting.

If food gets caught in your mouth, you should probably clean it out pronto. They don't care much for toothpicks though, so use your finger. High society loves clean smiles, and it'd be rude to smile at them with something stuck in there.

Rich snobs with sticks inside their assholes always get annoyed if your nose drips in their presence. Be sure to avoid this by using your sleeve or hand to wipe away any snot you may have accumulating. They'll give you a look that seems like a sneer when you do this, but that's just the way a smile looks with that stick so far up inside.

No matter what type of meal, always use your napkin as a bib. If none is provided, ask for one. If all they give you is a paper napkin, it's cool to use that as a bib too.

When eating soup try to scoop the soup towards your mouth. Efficiency is critical.

The policy towards stealing silverware is "Don't ask, don't tell." I found this out by telling.

Poop is a popular topic of conversation. Really, anything you say is acceptable, because gluttonously rich folk are liberal about that kind of thing.

These guidelines are each important and together as a unit represent your first step in becoming a prick. Over time though, if you want to run in these crowds you'll have to amass enough power to rise to the upper 1% of wealth. They won't want to hang around you otherwise. And you're going to have to name your kids funny too, names like Cookie and January and last names where first name ought to be.

Everybody has their standards, you know.