Today the coworkers and I went to a place for lunch that I had been boycotting for quite a while. I liked the place, and I wanted to give it another chance, but after today I think I'm done with it.

This place - which I lovingly refer to as China The Hutt - is your standard Chinese lunchtime buffet joint. It's a little seedy, but it's cheap.

But one time this summer we went and there were too many goddamned bugs. As soon as we walked in I saw a big, dead cockroach lying on its back near our table. He was kind of off in a corner, but there he was. Big. Dead. Whenever I turned slightly to the left I saw him. He would have winked at me, had he been alive.

Also, I was drinking iced tea that day. I went to add some sugar. None came out, because it had hardened to a solid mass at the bottom of the sugar container. I picked it up to shake it and see if I could get some sugar out.

The inside was crawling with ants. You know how an ant farm is supposed to look, with all the little tunnels? That's how this sugar looked.

I am bug-averse, so we haven't been back in a while. But it's Chinese, and it's cheap. Today I convinced myself that maybe they had cleaned at least once since I was there last.

Cleaned? Hell, they put in carpet! We sat down at our table. I went to shake out my napkin, and a little baby cockroach went flying into my lap and down to the floor.

I'm not going back.