Val is Quite the Idiot

I don't mean to brag. I'm sure there are idiots far more idioter than me. Though that sentence begs to differ. I have made the most egregious error in judgment. You know what happens when you ASSume.

We had Chinese food on Friday night. Hick always picks it up. He's a regular there. Through the years, I've had my share of pickup runs, mainly back when I was working. I'd swing by on the way home, since Hick took a different route. But since his retirement several years ago, picking up Chinese is Hick's job.

We always get the same thing. Hunan Chicken with fried rice for him, Hunan Pork with white rice for me, and Sweet & Sour Chicken with fried rice for The Pony. Plus an order of Crab Rangoon. Hick orders, then sits in the waiting chairs for it to be cooked. I don't know if they're allowing sit-down dining now. We have no mask mandate here. It's a small place, mainly carry-out business. But they have a soda fountain and four or five tables for in-eaters. It's a family-owned business. We used to chat with their teenage kids who worked there, about stuff like their high school, and getting their driver's license.

Anyhoo... Hick is not such a regular as Cheers Norm, but he's there a couple times a month. I don't know if the business has changed hands, or new workers have taken the place of the now-adult kids. The food is still delicious. So much that I have it for three days, compiling everyone's leftovers.

Saturday, as I was throwing away the waxed-paper bag that had held the crunchy ends of The Pony's Crab Rangoons, I noticed Hick's container wedged down in the wastebasket. I'd given it a shove, and later put in an empty can of storebought water chestnuts on top. I noticed the writing on Hick's container.

Wait just a gosh-darn minute! Is this Chinese restaurant like Starbucks? Do they write your name on the container? There in the wastebasket clearly sat "HICK!" No way! How does he always get special treatment? Maybe they gave him extra, as a payoff for not squealing on the cook who put the floor-onions (one of which I ATE, let's not forget) back in the wok last time. I looked at my own container. I know they don't know me. But maybe Hick had told them my name to put on my food.

"PORK."

Um. Yeah. Unless that was a thinly-veiled judgment of my ample rumpus, missing a "Y," I'm pretty sure the employees were not referring to me by name on my food container. And why had Hick given them his BLOG NAME, and not his real name? This mystery was getting more mysterious by the minute.

I stepped over to the wastebasket. It sits under the counter in the space that was meant for a dishwasher when we built the house in 1997. I moved the waxed paper and can away, and pulled up the foam container for a better look.

"CHICKEN."

Never mind...