For years I worked in restaurants--waiting tables, washing dishes, marrying ketchup bottles, etc--and over time one becomes accustomed to being covered at all times by a thin layer of grease; you acclimate to being disgusting. It's not uncommon in the food service industry to have mashed potatoes embedded into the tread of your sneakers, or to be stippled head to toe with steamed-milk; a sort of inverse freckling. A friend once (unintentionally) dropped a full serving of corned beef hash into his pocket while clearing a table. These are inconveniences, but not dire concerns. Tips are dire concerns, food stains can wait. And they do wait. Sometimes for hours. A shift can last anywhere from 4 hours on a slow night to 12 hours when a co-worker no-call/no-shows (the preferred method of quitting in the industry), and there are no formal breaks to speak of. If you're covered in something, you're covered in something for a while. Plenty of time for osmosis to take its course. How much can be absorbed through human skin? How permeable are the cell walls? How long would it take to eat an entire meal, by wearing it?
-Zane
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