Paying Money to Throw Food Away

Last night, we went out for a meal to celebrate my girlfriend's upcoming anniversary with her other partner. They wanted sushi, so we went to a local sushi place that had an all you can eat deal. They ordered the all-you-can-eat sushi, while I had vegetable tempura. Each of them ended up getting one more plate of food than they could eat.

As we were getting ready to pay, we were told that we weren't allowed to take the leftovers home. We said that's fine, but could they at least give them to someone? A needy person, one of the staff, whatever. The waitress responded with a no, followed by a very offended "You all know there's a $12 excess waste charge? Don't order more than you can eat." My response was, "What are you going to do? Throw it away?" I followed up with a lovely poetic socialist tirade. How is it that there are empty bellies in a country where food is discarded? There are empty homes, yet people go homeless. We literally paid $12 to throw away food.

Somebody tell me this is peak capitalism and the madness will be over soon.