Remembrance of things Pabst

So we have this favorite Thai restaurant called Nine D which is on the corner of our block. This is very convient because we love Thai food and go there or get take out a couple of nights a week. Now we love Thai as opposed to Chinese food because all of the ingredients are fresh and there is no MSG. At least the way Nine D does which are miles above all the Ptomaine Palaces we have for Chinese food in the neighborhood.

Now we like sit in the restaurant in the fall and winter but the wife doesn’t like to go there in the summer because they don’t turn on the air conditioner all the time. You see they have these big open windows and on a cool night there is a breeze. But only in the first two tables near the windows. The further back you go in the restaurant the warmer it gets and the wife can’t take warm especially after a long day of work. I mean all the dirty hippie hipster doufous assholes are so dirty and smelly they don’t care how much they sweat so they happily sit in the sweltering seats.

What we usually do is the wife goes home to change and I go and order the take out. I sit at the little bar area and have a beer while I am waiting. Now I almost never call for delivery of take out. Even pizza. I will call and put in an order and then come and pick it up. Only because every single time I ordered something it comes wrong. They forget something or screw something up and you have to call them and they have to come back and it is always a big bullshit story. So I put in the order and wait and when the food comes I ask some questions. “Are the spring rolls in there” “Did you give us peanut sauce” “Did you put in Chop Sticks.” Usually there is something wrong and they fix it.

You see we have become very good friends with the owner and the workers in the shop. They have come to our house for parties and barbeques and stuff. So I always get a big hello and the owner loves to hug and kiss the wife every time we come in to eat. We always get great treatment. The girls in the restaurant love to teach my wife dirty words in Thai. She hates those little mushrooms you get with the caps on that look like little penises. So she was joking with the girls and they told us the dirty word for penis in Thai sounds something like Sequoia. So when we order Chicken with Basil she always says “No Sequoia” and all the girls giggle. And if there are Thai people in the store they look amazed to say the least. We always have a laugh there. In fact sometimes the people at the tables stare at us joking around and laughing with the girls behind the counter. You can almost see the thought balloons over their heads “Who are these people and why are they all having a good time and I am stuck here with a bunch of nerdy people in Che t-shirts.”

Anyway we had a tough day yesterday so after I put in the order I got two beers. Which made them laugh because I told them it was a two fisted drinking day. Amy the owner and chef came out of the back and asked after the wife and what not and then went in the back to oversee the kitchen. I slop down the beers and the food comes and stupidly I don’t go through as I usually do. I just say goodnight and take the paper shopping bag and go home.

Well I take all the stuff out and sure enough they forgot something. No rice. I hate to eat the spicy Thai food with out some rice because the Beef Basil is very spicy and I need the rice to cut the heat. The wife is all “Call up and tell them to bring it …I don’t want you to go out again…the food will get cold.” Now I didn’t want to call because it would take forever and the food would be cold anyway. So I decided to go out and get it since all they had to do is scoop out the rice from the rice cooker and it would take about a minute. But there was one big problem.

You see I had already changed. I had taken off my uniform of a Hawaiian shirt and long khaki pants and boat shoes and was lounging around in gym shorts and a wife beater t-shirt. I figured the only way to punish them properly was to show up in the restaurant in my slippers with my gut hanging out and stray hairs poking out of my shirt and shorts. Think a dissipated Stanley Kowalski channeling George the Animal Steele. The wife was freakin out and said I had to at least put the shirt on so people wouldn’t start puking at the tables. I had to agree she had a good point.

So I walk around the corner and go “He you forgot my rice what’s up with that?” And they do the time honored thing that all employees do. “It’s Amy’s fault, she messed up.” First thing they do is throw the boss under the bus. I had to say I was proud of them.

They are real Americans now.