Aurd Rang Syne?

A tense moment yesterday when I picked up our take out order at Hagashi restaruant. In completing the transaction I blurted out, like the insensitive Amero-centric jerk that I am, Happy New Year. I mean come on! How close minded can I be? Not everyone celebrates the same New Year, pal. We do not need this kind of offensive hate speech in the public sphere. In my embarassment I tried to fix the situation with a hasty, garbled half apology that sounded something like, ohbutyoumightnot... (and we say they talk funny!). Mercifully, she wished me a Happy New Year back and I realized that she's probably used to this kind of mistreatment and has just learned to live with it. Then I realized this is a Japanese restaurant and it's the Chinese who have their own New Year. Oh well, better safe than sorry I say. You never know who's going to be offended by what these days.

Speaking of...I was immediately reminded of an unfortunate episode during my stint at BC. (If you've heard me tell this story you can stop reading at anytime). I had a brief but memorable General Tso's phase where I would order Chinese food quite regularly. During this phase, the dorm would go through periods where security was taken seriously and then it wasn't. The problem was you never knew when it was and when it wasn't. Anywho, this one night after I buzzed in the delivery guy a few minutes passed and he didn't knock. I figured that they weren't letting him up so I decided to go down to the 5 flights to the lobby (such was the degree of my hunger). Happily, before I had to exert myself, I was met in the doorway of the stairwell by just the guy I was looking for, a young Asian fella carrying a plastic bag. He stood in hall a second looking at me, so I said "Golden Dragon?". He said (in perfect English mind you ) "What did you say?". "Are you from Golden Dragon?". He looked at me then looked down and wth a voice saturated in disappointment said, "No, man" and walked to his dorm room.