Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Chinese Takeout Wars

Lest any of you think that now that I am older, and more mature - that I am somehow past my "blonder days" - let me set your admiring minds at ease. Some people just don't change. I happen to be one of those people I'm afraid. I try desperately, but somehow ditziness finds its way to me. Like a heat seeking missile.

A few weeks ago, Brian and I set out to have a date night. {As is typical for us, date nights are almost always "in" - since we only have 1 relative in town, and don't want to wear out our babysitting options there, for times when it's really needed:-) We could always hire a sitter, I suppose - but usually we don't have enough money in the budget to afford both going out AND paying for a sitter. So we amuse ourselves at home, which is really nice, actually. Mostly because you don't have to put makeup on.}

Our kids have always gone to bed at 7pm, so this gives us a good amount of alone time. We set out our plan for the night. Dinner and a movie. We felt like Chinese food and The Wolverine on Redbox.
We live in a new neighbourhood, and have not ordered Chinese food here before, so we looked up nearby places online. Sure enough, there is a Chinese place right next to the Farm Fresh, which houses our closest Redbox. We put a hold on the movie. We ordered the Chinese food. I waited the 10 minutes they suggested and set off.

When I walked into the Chinese restaurant, I noted that it said "CHINESE" in red lettering on the store front. I mentally thought..."hmmm, weird that it was called Jade Star online".

I told the girl behind the counter I was here to pickup my order. Insert note: I do not know why it has to be typical of all Chinese fast food - but they never speak English. All communication is usually accomplished with "yes" and eyebrow raising, nodding, pointing, and more "yes"ing. Anyway...I said I was here for my order, and she raised her eyebrows at me.

So I said "My order...Chicken Lo Mein and eggrolls?" She said, while pointing to the cook, "Yes, 10 minute". I said "10 minutes? But I ordered 10 minutes ago!"...they didn't appear to be busy, but the cook was fiddling around with something...She said "Yes, 10 minute". "Um, ok, well, I'm going to go pickup my movie, I'll be right back". "Yes, ok".

So I went back picked up my food, drove home, put in the movie, started eating the food...and the phone rings. It was fairly hard to understand yelling "in Chinese", but the jist of the conversation was "why didn't you ever pick up your food". Ooops. Brian was saying, I'm sorry! I'm sorry, We're leaving right now!

He hangs up and says, I can't believe you went to wrong place! I said I didn't! I went to the place we called! Well, apparently not. I wanted to go to the place that I did go to, but that was not where we called. Jade Star is in a different shopping complex across the street.

Pause the movie. Go buy more Chinese Lo Mein and eggrolls. It cost exactly the same amount. I apologized for taking so long and told her what happened, but I am not sure she understood me, entirely. Oh well.

So now that we had more food, we did a taste test comparison of both places. I liked the second place better, and Brian liked the first place better.

So next time, we might not agree on WHERE to order, but I least I know where they are, once we decide:-)

I got the first major blonde moment of 2014 out of the way. It's all downhill from here.

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