Chronically Ironic

·Happy Balut Day to Me!

Yeah, I didn’t know the real name for it, either. Thanks, Google, for being so awesome that even my lame ass can put some retarded shit in your search field and find what I need.

My birthday is on Christmas Eve. This sucks in many ways, and it led to many years simply driving around Catholic church parking lots at 5 minutes to midnight, not being able to find a parking spot, and going to a bar instead. It also leads to many of your friends not really taking any sort of interest in your birthday. Which is fine after 21, but until then, is a real drag. As a kid, you never get cool shit or have parties. I am sure all of that birthday-neglect has made me into the intelligent, fun-seeking and bitter person I am today. There is one birthday, however, that I will never forget…

I drove in to Dallas from college one year for Christmas, and spent the evening with my friend Leigh and her sister. We decided it would be cool to a) drink a lot and b) make authentic Chinese food for my (and Jesus’) birthday celebration. We needed food though. It was off to the local grocery store for us.

While tooling around South Arlington for an open grocery store at about 7pm on Christmas Eve, it became increasingly clear to us that our options were limited. But Lo! There in the distance lay a Vietnamese grocery. Hell yes. They were sure to have the makings of a fine quasi-Chinese dinner for us. We entered the store with half-drunk bravado – none of us being able to read or speak Vietnamese, and the few phrases we learned from Platoon were pretty useless in a grocery – unless, of course, they were hiding firearms in the rice. Highly improbable.

We were able to procure many of the items we needed: Won ton wrappers, cabbage, carrots, a mix for egg drop soup – oh yeah, that required some eggs. We got a few more things to make, and then we searched all over for eggs. Finally, up by the checkout lanes, we found a refrigerated case with eggs in it – but the eggs were sitting in there individually, not in the familiar cardboard or Styrofoam container. Oh well, we thought – maybe they just do things differently in Vietnam. Like sell eggs separately instead of in cartons of six or twelve. We pile all of our new-found Asian delights in front of the register, and a small older lady looks at us like we are the White Devil, smiles sinisterly, and says in a low guttural tone,

“You know, dead baby duck in egg.”

We are smiling back at her, thinking she is just telling us what eggs are. We know what eggs are, and we are old enough and smart enough to know that it is an embryo, which to some, may qualify as something “dead” inside a shell. Leigh looks back at her and says, “Oh, yeah, we know!” She looks at us again, this time without the Fuck-You! White-Girl look, but with a look of concern on her withered face –

“No. Dead Baby Duck. In Egg.”

We look at her, and then each other, in horror. She takes the egg from us. We pay and run.

We went back to the apartment and must have laughed and grossed each other out and laughed even more about this for probably the next three hours. Needless to say, I know now that eggs, my friends, better be in their safe little carton or I ain’t buyin’ em. And that was a birthday lesson well worth learning early in life.

Why Girls Cry