My day didn’t exactly start off the way I wanted it to yesterday. First of all, I was leaving my house at 5:45 am. That’s almost 2.5 hours earlier than I normally leave my house in the morning, so right off the bat I was pissed. Then, upon actually leaving my house at 5:45am I stepped into hot-ass balmy-nuts weather. 87 degrees with 90% humidity before 6am? AWESOME. So very very awesome. My beanbag pretty much immediately erupted into horrifying pouch of sweat and flesh and didn’t unstick from my leg until about 18 hours later.
The 3 hour trip to Charlottesville was chatty and friendly, but uneventful, as was the all-day meeting there. By the end of the day I was beginning to think I wouldn’t have anything at all to write about. On our way back up to Baltimore we, of course, hit the requisite beltway traffic. We were about halfway through our three-hour drive, and the first half had been completed in near silence. At first I had figured that everyone was just digesting some of the things that had come up in the meeting, but after a while I began to worry if something was wrong, or if my driving was bad or something. I mean, sure, I gunned the engine and hit that flatbed with it’s ramp down on the side of the road with the wheels on the right side of the van so we’d be propelled into a badass 1080 corkscrew (+ indy kickflip + nosegrind: 27,346 points!), and besides being forced to lose those cops in a cornfield, and that one eensy weensy vehicular manslaughter, my driving was fine. I couldn’t figure out why everyone was so quiet.
And while I’m not the type of person who becomes uneasy during protracted silences, I was so exhausted that I was kind of hoping there was some type of banter I could follow along with. About half-an hour and a few tenths of a mile later (we’re on the beltway, remember) one of the guys in the back speaks up, and I couldn’t be more surprised at what came out of his mouth.
A little background: I can’t really tell you about what I was doing down in Charlottesville, but I can tell you that I had a van full of high-ranking engineers from my company. If you know engineers, you’ll know they can be blunt, and that for the most part they’re masters of cutting through the bullshit to get to the heart of a matter. Frequently they’re also imperial douchebags because of this, but I’m willing to take the good with the bad. So back to the van: The second-highest ranking engineer on the trip, the one who all day long had been reiterating the same point to anyone who would listen to him until the other side finally relented, much to the surprise of our whole group (except for maybe the guy himself. He’s a bulldog.), he opens his mouth and says to the third highest ranking engineer, “What’s your favorite Chinese restaurant?”
Normally, this would be a perfectly reasonable question, except #3 is Chinese. The was a very pregnant pause. Like “14 years old and trying to hide it under a tank-top” pregnant. I couldn’t believe it! This is like asking a black person if you can touch their hair! This is like asking a Jewish person what stocks to invest in! This is like asking a white person… um. Geez, what’s a racist thing to ask a white person? Uh… erm, I guess this would be like asking a white person how to create a thriving society where everyone is employed and doesn’t commit any crimes or transmit any STDs. Anyway, I was flabbergasted, and excitedly looking forward to the reply from #3.
“Well, it depends on what type of Chinese food you like. What do you usually get?”
“I like the kung-pao chicken.”
“Ugh, that’s low-grade crap we make for Americans.”
“Beef and broccoli?”
“Low-grade.”
“Egg-foo young?”
“Low-grade.”
“Chop suey?”
“That’s not even Chinese!” He said, finally erupting after having stayed relatively calm. “That would be like me asking you what the best American food is. Cheetos or Doritos? Or maybe you like Fritos. Which is the best?!”
The van was silent for a moment, and then it exploded with laughter. For the next half-hour we played “Insult the cuisine of the passengers” specifically focusing on #3’s Chinese heritage, and #1’s Greek heritage.
“Sesame chicken,” someone would guess from somewhere in the back of the van.
“Crap!”
“Gyro,” #3 would then yell.
“Crap!” came the call from #1, riding shotgun.
After a while we started running out of ideas, so the conversation turned back to good ethnic restaurants, and I now have it on good authority that Hunan Manor in Columbia is a great place for Cantonese and Fujian style Chinese food, as well as all that “low-grade” American Chinese food, however, in an extremely amusing turn of events, I also learned that #3’s favorite American Chinese restaurant is PF Changs!
“I know, I know,” he said, “it’s a chain, and the food isn’t even remotely Chinese. And if my parents ever found out they would kill me. It’s a good thing they never fly over here.”
Things settled down a little after that, and for a few more miles the van was silent again, until one of the engineers in the back who had been relatively quiet for the whole trip shouted, “Collard greens and kool-aid!” All eyes whipped around to the only black engineer on the trip who suddenly looked furious. He turned around and swung his arm over the seat and stared down the engineer in the back.
“How dare you!? How dare you say something so insulting to me!? Do you think it’s funny to joke about African Americans like that? Do you think we all eat southern food like fried chicken, and watermelon, and waffles, and grape soda? Well? What do have to say for yourself?”
The engineer in the back was about as white as mayonnaise. He started stammering, “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. I just thought it was something we could… I don’t know… I just wanted to…”
“Crap!” came the call from the black engineer, and the van once again reverberated with laughter as the engineer in the back regained his normal complexion.
For the rest of the ride home it was a litany of foods like chow mein, souvlaki, and chitterlings, all followed by a chorus of “Crap!”
