It was great seeing Annie again and I realized what a terrific person she was and how much fun it was just knowing her and I thought of that old joke, you know, the, this, this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, uh, my brother's crazy, he thinks he's a chicken,' and uh, the doctor says, 'well why don't you turn him in?' And the guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships. You know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd and, but uh, I guess we keep going through it...because...most of us need the eggs.
-Woody Allen
When my dad (OFD) goes to the Chinese restaurant, there's always some anxiety involving the egg roll and spicy mustard. Traditionally, during the egg roll course at Milwaukee's William Ho's, both spicy mustard and sweet and sour sauce are brought to the table. And with the same regularity, the spicy mustard is whisked away before the entree arrives. For whatever reason, Mr. Ho does not consider the main dish--any main dish--to require spicy mustard. The problem is, OFD likes the spicy mustard on his shrimp in lobster sauce, on his white rice, on his fried rice, and occasionally, on his beef and broccoli. One would think it'd be easy enough to simply ask the waitress to leave the mustard behind, or if unable to catch her pre-whisk, to please return it.
Herein lies the problem: once, long before I was born, OFD requested that the spicy mustard be left behind for him to enjoy with his entree. The waiter came back with the accusation that surely, OFD must have forgotten he'd ordered a fish dish, thus implying that no reasonable person could intend to put spicy mustard on fish. OFD felt powerless to object.
Throughout my childhood and adolescence, the spicy mustard conundrum joined us at every William Ho's outing. Asking for the mustard to be left behind could precipitate a confrontation so stressful as to interfere with OFD's enjoyment of the first course. And asking for the mustard to be returned was right out. Hiding the jar under the table whenever the waitress materialized seemed childish (my suggestion), and sneaking in our own mustard would have felt like crossing the line.
Why didn't we just eat someplace else? William Ho had the best egg rolls.
Today was Olive's first day of showing up for Summer camp. Because of our horrible gastrointestinal virus, we had missed orientation and the entire first week of activities. We did not get to meet the counselors before today, and we did not have our Special Packet: you know, the one that says where to go, what to wear, what to pack in the satchel, and in fact, what sort of satchel it should be. All we had this morning was a short letter sent long prior to orientation that said, in reference to camp arrival, Please be prompt! Drop-off and pick-up locations are in front. Drive down the fire lane, please, and do not get into the carpool lane!
Some people, like LB, can read directions such as these with no increase in blood pressure. They're sure that the whole fire lane/carpool lane business will be completely self-explanatory upon arrival, and if not, well, what's the worst that can happen? But when I read things like this, I know that my near future holds a circuitous maze of one-way lanes, poorly placed orange cones, and the promise of being yelled at by someone in a crossing guard's banner.
It makes me feel, to put it another way, as if I've arrived at Mr. Ho's after the egg roll plates have been cleared.
As I could have predicted, there was more than one fire lane, and we ended up in the fire lane more traveled. It was the fire lane meant for parents of 'Nother Kids: the ones who leap effortlessly from the back of the minivan and can follow the language of cursory waves and written signs that say exactly where they should be. It's amazing how one parent being in the wrong lane can slow down the entire drop-off process, and it's equally amazing (though I may be overly sensitive about this sort of thing) how quick those parents of regular kids are about pressing the horn. When the requisite woman in a banner showed up with her indecipherable instructions to use that lane back there, see? Where those cars are coming out. No! Not the first one--the one behind it! I barely flinched. I already knew there was no succor to be had, let alone spicy mustard.
I am convinced these are the things that shorten our lives, these pokes in the sternum in the form of brief, admonishing exchanges with other people. And it makes sense to me now why no condiment in the world was worth, in OFD's mind, the risk of an evening out turning into a jab in the chest. The question of why we venture out into the world at all is so handily answered above by Woody Allen that it hardly bears repeating, let alone paraphrasing, but there it is: we need the egg rolls.
