Factoid about Thai culture.

In Thailand, they play Elvis's "Can't Help Falling in Love with You" a lot at weddings.

The (Thai) restaurant's Pandora or whatever was playing that one day, and the (wife) of the (young) (Thai) couple told that to me.

And, I asked her if they played that at her wedding, and she said that her and her husband got married, but it was just on paper and they haven't had a big celebration yet, they're going to have that next year after they move back to Thailand.

"His voice is so low," she was like, and she sang, "Ohhh," imitating Elvis. 

Later that same day, too, Pandora played that same song again, and some (older) (white) customer guy made a comment to me about the authentic Thai music, and so that made me be all like, "Well, actually...", and I shared that trivia with him about Thai weddings.

And, he didn't know what to say.

My coworker then told me like five minutes later that she had played that song again, since she had been thinking about it so much since we had been talking.

Seasons at the (Thai) restaurant.

They set up a (Christmas) tree in the big front window the week before Thanksgiving.

As soon as I saw that and the (Guatemalans) from the kitchen were straggling out to go get soda from the pop machine before the day started, I pointed to it and was like, "!Feliz Navidad!".

And, one guy was confused about what I was talking about, and then I gestured some more at the tree, and then he was like, "Oh," and he wished me a "feliz navidad" as well.

. . .

(They all drink big things of regular cola, too, and yet somehow they don't seem to put on weight. Like, what's up with that?)

A tale of my (West African) postman.

So, like a month ago I was reading on the front porch, and my one (West African) postman stopped by, and we chit-chatted some like we pretty much always do.

And, when I said that my job was going good but I was tired a lot and I needed to caffeinate properly in the late afternoon to get my energy back, he told me that back before this job and back before when he was married, he worked as a gas station attendant at a gas station out by the highway, and one night he got home from the club one night at like 2am and went to bed, and they called him at 4am to come in, and though he said he only got 2 hours of sleep and he told them that, they made him come in to work at the gas station.

So, even though he never drinks coffee or anything, he got to work and he got a Five Hour Energy Drink and drank it, and for like ten minutes it was like it wasn't doing anything and he thought it didn't work, and then all of a sudden he felt like his chest was crushing, and then it gave him so much energy, that he couldn't get to bed until 6am the next day, and when he did, he totally crashed, and he was getting calls on his phone and he wasn't answering them and people were worrying about him and thought that maybe something had happened to him.

So then, after that, whenever people would be interested by the Five Hour Energy Drink stand right by the cash register, he'd point to that and tell his story, and tell people to be careful with it.

He also said that he doesn't drink tea or coffee, just beer, "Any beer I'll drink it," which surprised me, and I told him so.

"Oh yeah," he was like, "I'm like that."

Two sets of interactions with the (Thai) restaurant owners's (Thai-American) children...

...when they were in the restaurant for like two days straight, when they had some school off because of parent-teacher conferences:

1) I told the younger one who's like early middle school that "back in my day" parent-teacher conferences only lasted for one hour, since all of the children were perfect and the parents would come in and the teachers would just be like, "Your children are perfect," and then the parents could leave again right away, and that's how it was with all of the children, and she just looked at me and was like, "Wow."

(I'm not sure if she got that that was a joke.)

Later, she was doing her (French) homework, and so I started quizzing her and telling her about Romance languages and Haitian Creole as a daughter of French etc., all in really simple accessible ways, and then I asked her if she knew about Haiti, and she didn't, so I told her that it's a country in the Caribbean where around the time of the American Revolution there was this huge slave revolt and they went and set up their own country, and at that her eyes sparked up and she was like, automatically and genuinely and partially to herself, "That's cool"

2) When the next day they were both eating at a corner table and I got water to go around to the customers, I stopped at their table like they were customers and very formally topped off the water in both their glasses, which took them a second to see that I was doing it as a joke, and then I very formally asked them if they had "one or separate checks," at which the (older) (high school-aged) daughter right away was like, "One, and she's paying!", flinging her finger out and pointing across the table at her little sister.

"Okay," I was like.

So, like ten minutes later when I had time, I took the back of a receipt and drew up a mock receipt for them, with the cost as "$37 million," and then a bit where tax was "$.03," so the entire bill was "$37,000,000.03."

Only, by that time, the little sister was gone.

So, I went and served it to the older daughter anyways, and she looked at it and was like, "Inflation is getting crazy!".

Later, too, I saw the little sister and I asked her if she had gotten the bill.

She had, she told me, "And I'm not paying!".

The smile of a coworker.

So like once a week I work with the one (late middle-aged) (Thai) woman who's been at the restaurant for like ten years, and who is a blaze at taking orders over the phone.

And, she's not talkative or super friendly, but she isn't mean or anything, either, and it's fine to work with her, since it's just a day at work, without any drama, though usually without many substantive coworker interactions outside of what's necessary for actual job duties.

The other week, though, when it came time to order our staff meal, I asked her if we could do beef pad see you, and she said she doesn't eat beef, but pork or chicken is fine, and so I asked her if we could order pork pad see you, and she said that was fine, and then I thanked her a lot, "Since usually I don't care, but today I have a big taste for pad see you, and I just really, really want some pad see you today," and for some reason that gave her a big smile -- maybe because a (white) person really wanted this particular form of (Thai) food, and she could see that I did indeed really, really want it on that particular day?

I wonder if her other (white) (American) coworkers behave like me.

Two customers the other day at the (Thai) restaurant:

1) A (tall) (young) (thin) (black) guy in a (Puma) shirt who I recognize from a bit ago, only he walks in without waiting to be seated, and he seems twitchy, and when I come to the table once he's counting a huge wad of cash in front of him and he's keeping it kind of half-hidden under the table, and when after he leaves I pick up the credit card receipt, the numbers for the tip and the total aren't added up quite right.

2) A (fat) (younger) (white) (darker bearded) (kind of autistic-seeming) guy who has a business card and who has a (jubilant) (white) (middle-aged) (female) friend with "vacation energy" with him, and together they have like a $54 meal -- major beverages, an appetizer, two entrees, one pricier -- and when they leave and after he puts it all on his card, there's a $5 tip.

Like, that works out to less than ten percent.

Some of my recent job routines this fall...

...at the (Thai) restaurant where I now work:

1) Sweeping leaves away from the front door and cleaning up the front entryway from them, and brushing them off the sidewalk and out from around the front sidewalk patio furniture, every day when I help open up;

2) Spot-sweeping the interior for stray rice grains and whatnot, and making sure the chairs are straight so everything looks super nice and subliminally clean for when the first customers walk in; and

3) Once when it was slow, taking a towel and some table cleaner, and spraying a little table cleaner on the towel, and wiping down the two pairs of salt and pepper shakers that we keep on hand, since they were getting pretty sticky on the outside, and doing the same with the two soy sauce bottles, too, even though those weren't quite as bad.