kind of feel bad about this, I whispered to myself walking out of the place. I was at a Chinese joint…take out, ordering some beef and scallions with white rice when an older black couple came in behind me. It soon became apparent that they were regulars, as they discussed the new owner of the joint, who they had some hostility to if read ‘bitch thinks she all the egg none the roll’ correctly. I asked myself, does a free soy sauce advertisement calendar carefully hanging on the inside of a Getty Station inside bathroom door solve world hunger. No, I concluded. I asked myself a number of fiercely irrelevant questions as Jesus Christ himself was sweeping up with even arm movements, a make believe upstairs busy preparing the 22nd century Chinese fast food cuisine that you desperately wanted special abilities to even remotely fathom the recondite possibilities of in advance.
I said to myself in a voice reminiscent of my usual speaking voice: “egg em’ on about how the specials are more expensive and don’t include certain items gratis.’ These throw in items seemed to be from what I gathered ones that they only truly wished to have only if they didn’t have to toss any extra do-re-me on the that crooked massacred counter table the hue of an accidental experimental cotton candy blue diarrhea.
“It always came with the broccoli.”
“A dawler more, confused, hah? Not wing…sliced…”
“Naw, the coke was there too. Not a dollar, how much, free. Say’s here….(not looking at menu…but rather eyeing my pack of Lucy Strikes lights that I was spanking before opening…) NO, says COKE FREE, look.”
The woman really wanted broccoli which did not come free with an order of chicken wings but only with various sliced chicken dishes in addition to other types of orders. It cost a dollar more. This failure to see the apparent limitations of ordering the wings in lieu of throw in items not thrown in set off a round of wonderfully confusing banter that I loved as it grew gnarly with the kind of stuttering repetition that raises the vexatious nimbus of wickedness above my snowy head accompanied by rapturous sounds of an other worldly timbre. Yes, the pronunciations, speaking styles, gesticulations, and general odd and confusing confrontation of this episode rely in part on the ethnic/generational chasm between the two groups. I must state hear for those extremely sensitive souls that I did not just ignorantly delight in poking fun of the two party’s alleged inferiority in the ways of communication or am purposely stereotyping for the crude slimy ha-ha of it all. I’m not, so there.
I kept on muttering to the man that it used to be a fairer deal at this joint, one could get a free coke can with their meal. An annoying kid started screaming into a refrigerated unit. I had never been in this joint, nor do I generally eat foot I don’t make or that is not free because I’m cheap for one, but also because I prefer making food myself. I jibed about the possible 3 cent surcharge on hot mustard in a loose/flippant way, and the older black couple and myself laughed as the woman brought back only one order of fried wings, broccoli, pork fried rice, when three were ordered. As I left the Chinese take out joint, I heard the mellifluous cacophony of a mantra that dealt with the words: extra, dollar, coke, no three, not one, you confused, very still, where’s that boy, hate this new one, very, not three cokes all three, right, naw! Happy new year!