Reminiscent of The Christmas Story, there is only so much turkey you can eat in a week. Which brings me to the reason I stopped in a local Chinese take out restaurant to pick up something other than turkey last night. It would seem that about 1000 other people had the same idea.
When you walk into this very small storefront, you realize you could never really eat in. There are two small tables on one wall with four chairs at each table, and directly across (about 11 paces with my toe touching my heel on the way over) is a row of chairs where you wait for takeout. Most customers sit at the tables to wait for take out, leaving the row of chairs for those who might decide to eat in. No one has ever witnessed anyone eating in.
The food is good. It's made almost in front of you as you order. The kitchen is long and narrow and makes a galley kitchen look like a plantation house. On this night there were about eight people cooking. One person was elected to be the front counter order taker.
This is not at all like Cheers. No one knows your name. But if you call enough, they get to know the last four digits of your phone number. Because that is what they use to identify who ordered what.
There were apparent problems with orders, people waiting a while, some mix ups, but everyone seemed congenial enough. I think they were all so happy to have an option other than turkey they would have walked across a muddy creek to pick up their orders.
I never call. So I am not known by either my name or my number. I am known by what I order. "Snow peas and shrimp" or "beef with mushrooms" or "won ton soup" or "shrimp toast."
Front counter man was a little discombobulated because counter waiters were abundant. I grabbed a "circle what you want" menu and a pencil and circled "snow peas and shrimp" and "beef with mushrooms." I'm not very inventive. After handing that in, I went and sat in the row of chairs 11 paces from the two tables and checked my cell phone for a game to play. It was going to be thirty minutes.
Every once in a while counter man would call out a number to see if someone had come in for a pick up that didn't report for duty directly to him. 0718! 2402! You need to keep your head down when he does this or he will immediately look at you and say again "0718?" And then you have to shake your head "NO" and it's such a waste of energy.
I was playing a good game of angry birds which had an appropriate Chinese motif and just about had the last pig killed when I noticed counter man was standing by me. This was about 20 numbers later. "What you order?" he asked me. Hmmmm....what did I order? It was so long ago, and I was so concentrating on that last pig.
"Uh...beef..." I stammered. "Uh (I hate people who say uh) beef with....." What was it with? Broccoli? Vegetables? Birds? Pigs? ".......mushrooms!" I finally screamed out much like a gold miner screams out EUREKA!!!!!! He waited. Wasn't that enough? Did he actually expect me to remember the other thing I ordered? Last pig was doing muffled grunting on my phone. "AND..." I said like I discovered plutonium..."shrimp.....shrimp with snow peas." HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH went the piggy.
Thankfully the light bulb went off over his head and he said "okay" and ran back behind the counter. I looked at the couple across from me sitting at the tables waiting for their order and said "I forgot...it's been a while....."
Tempers were flaring in the galley. More duck sauce was needed in the bin on the counter (requested by a patron) and when counter man went to fill it, he dropped about 20 packets on the floor. I'm not sure what he was saying, but I'll bet it's stuff I say when I hit my toe at night into the side of the dresser table.
People continued to flow in and out. 2177! 6435! 3232! SHRIMP AND SNOW PEAS! I looked up. "Yeah, that be you Missy," he said. Up I jumped and grabbed my brown bag full of all things that weren't turkey. I would have crossed a muddy creek for it!Aaarrrooooo!
