We entered the Chinese restaurant, Wicked Wok Chinese Restaurant, in Chinatown, New York, alerted by a peculiar sign: “Welcome Tourist We Spik Inglish.” We were co-workers at the Dole Food Company, travelling around America amusing ourselves with the poor language proficiency of “native Americans” seen in signs like this:
We asked our waiter, a weird Chinese Richard Nixon look-alike, to recommend us something, to which he replied; ‘’I like turtles!’’. Confused we pointed at random item on the menu and ended up having a strange meal containing shallots, welsh onion and yams, meat drenched in ketchup from the H.J. Heinz Company. We asked the waiter about what meat we were eating; my money was on some kind of fowl. He replied: It’s delicious Bald Eagle, you favorite national bird, yes? Not fully understanding his answer more pieces of the puzzle fell in place when we spotted the cage in the corner with a sign saying: “Warning: Feed a Pigeon, Lose a Finger!” This restaurant was selling any kind of bird off the streets and apparently even some dudes cat sometimes... We all vomited violently and stormed out of the place.
On top of that horrific experience we sat out in the night to look for the local watering hole finding a bar called ‘’Mars,’’ lured by a sign in the window reading: “Beer! Give your brain the night off!” We went inside to find a nice place with local New Yorkers. I kind of felt like beer, but we decided to buy some cheap chardonnay instead to get a quick buzz.
My two friends, informally known as ‘’Dodo’’ and ‘’Bobby’’ eventually got my boss ‘’Terror Bird’’ extremely drunk and I couldn’t help but noticing their conversation. Dodo yelled; ‘’Chardonnay!’’,
The rest of us: “Chardonnay!”
Terror Bird: “Chardonnay to you, my fine young chap! Let’s fry the leftover sausages over the campfire!” – He was so drunk! We had no idea what he was talking about.
Dodo: “Oh so you don’t want Bobby instead huh?”
Terror Bird: “NOOOOOO!!!”
“That’s totally not chardonnay…” I mumbled.
My bladder bursting with Chardonnay, I had to make a pit stop. Unfortunately, the toilet was flooded and looked like someone had a go at it with a sledge hammer. They had a bucket on the floor to go in but it was no time to be picky. The mirror smeared with L’Oreal Paris lipstick read: Warning: Reflections in this mirror may be distorted by socially constructed ideas of ‘’beauty’’, which made me laugh.
When I got back outside the others were in a heated argument.
Dodo : “You are so arrogant!”
Terror Bird: “What???...”
Bobby: “Where the hell did that come from, she didn’t even say anything?”
Terror Bird and Bobby: “Hahahahaha!”
Bobby: “I guess that’s the alcohol talking… lol.”
In her drunken stupor Terror Bird eventually ended up firing Dodo, who angrily left the bar. Later, though, he stormed in again holding a Smith & Wesson and a chainsaw. Apparently Dodo had acquired these peculiar items at the nearby ‘’Hung Fat Pawn Shop.’’
He proceeded to angrily saw our table in half, yelling obscenities at Terror Bird: ''You bastards, I have three kids to take care of, I'll kill myself!!!!'' He then started laughing maniacally like the joker from “Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth,” finally pulling his Smith & Wesson, sighing: ‘’Why so serious?’’ proceeding to blow his brains out all over the remains of the table. We all stood around his body speechless, looking like that painting ‘’The Scream’’. We later learned that he suffered from chronic depression and was mentally unstable. C’est la vie.
By Mikkel & Peter.
Nice yarn, but it ain't travel writing!
ReplyDeleteFairly good job of working some of the troublesome ingredients into the story...