Some recent happenings...

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

1) Since a scholarly book that I had checked out of the university library and was reading had to do with the one (indigenous) group that a lot of my (Guatemalan) coworkers are from, I took it into the restaurant to show everyone, and as soon as he sees it, my one (thinner) (older) (Guatemalan) coworker says he wants a copy, even though as far as I know he doesn't know (English) all that well at all to read anything, let alone a long scholarly book.

(It's the symbolic power, that a book in [English] is about his people.)

2) When a (younger) (chubbier) (nerdy) (bearded) (white) guy customer is in with some (thin) (non-descript) (college-age) (white) girl, he opens up that he recognizes me from the local popular lecture that I threw, and then he asks my name again, and I ask him how he found out about it, and he said through posters up around campus and it seemed interesting even though he does engineering and knows nothing about the subject, so he went, and so I went on a little bit about that, and anyhow, when they leave, there's a nice tip, and written on the receipt is "Thank you [my first name]" with a heart drawn next to it, which receipt I promptly show to all of my coworkers.

"See," my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones said, right away. "Now they know you are here, and they will come and kidnap you."

3) When my one (newer) (taller) (Thai) coworker's late elementary school age daughter is sitting at a corner table during dinner shift, she's eating these individually-wrapped gummy candies out of a big bag, and later right before she goes, she shares some with everyone, and written on the bag is -- THAI MANGO SOFT GUMMY CANDY.

So, I ask her where she got them, of course thinking they're something special from (Thailand).

"TJ Maxx in [notoriously shitty and rundown town like forty-five minutes away from the college town that I live in]," she was like.

Anyhow, since the little mango candies were shaped like apostrophes, I held one up underneath each of my eyes, and I told her that I was crying because she wouldn't give me more candy, while my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones held one up on each side of her mouth, and made as if they were fangs.