Last night, at dinner with my family, two very traumatic things happened: my dad squashed his finger, and I found two hairs in my food. On the upside: we had a good time, and I learned a lesson so powerful, my gag reflex engages upon remembering it.
We were at a (former) favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Arlington. The only less-than-great gastric experience we ever had there was when I ordered the Red Bean Boba Tea: expecting to suck up familiar fruity bubble tea, I was surprised when the large bright straw delivered red beans and strips of gelatin. Otherwise, beautiful healthy meals and reasonable prices dazzled and delighted us!
The charm of this authentic hole-in-the-wall was broken by a chair with a loose seat: while scooting closer to the table, my dad’s left index finger was caught between seat and chair, and was smashed under the weight of his body! Blood oozed from under and around his fingernail!
As the rest of us looked on, horrified, we were overcome by shameful insane desperate empathetic hysterical laughter. My dad groaned about the probable eventual detachment of his fingernail, and the inevitable pain of doing things – like playing the clarinet! He has retired from his post as First Clarinet of the Fort Worth Symphony, though continues to teach, practice and perform a lot. He grimaced as it dawned on him that he relies on the damaged finger to cover the Ab hole on the clarinet.
The restaurant offered an apology, a different chair, a band-aid, and some burn ointment. They also offered to apply the band-aid for my dad, but he requested to soak his throbbing finger in ice water for a bit.
Later, while a confused server wandered around with our steamy-hot, much-anticipated food, my dad gingerly applied the burn ointment in hope of pain relief. His effort was in vain: the burn ointment only served to render his paw un-band-aid-able: it was too slippery.
As we began to eat the food that would likely make right of some of what had gone so wrong, I observed that my dad’s chair wasn’t the only seat in the restaurant in need of repair – many booths were patched up with bright blue duct tape. None-the-less, on one booth, I spotted a hole large enough to engulf a baby!
A couple of bites into my delicious heap of fresh veggies and soft-and-sometimes-crunchy-wide noodles, I discovered a dreadful black hair lurking behind a succulent crispy carrot! Beneath my repulsion and disappointment, pressure to be polite weighed me down. I was locked down by a pattern from my teenage years – back when dinners were difficult because I didn’t want to eat any animal products or unnecessary calories. I felt 14 again - unsure of what to do with strong negative emotions in a world full where cute little animals get eaten, and beautiful food is tainted by hair. I didn’t want to cause a scene. My mom said that she wasn’t sure what she would do if she was me, but she warned that the restaurant might do something gross to my food if I sent it back. “A hair isn’t so bad…” she said, “considering what they COULD put in your food. Perception is everything! A hair really isn’t a big deal!! Think of how much cat hair you’ve probably eaten at our house!!!”
I ruminated while she chimed, and poked around with my chopsticks. I ventured to take a bite, but was interrupted by the sight of another hair! I nearly put down my chopsticks, but then she said “It’s probably just a piece of the same strand of hair! It ‘s all about perception. “
My dad said “Yeah, or maybe you only saw 2 and not the 4 pieces of hair that are in there. It’s a matter of perception!” I laughed, but I wasn’t entirely sure what he was suggesting I do. My mom said “Oh, 1 hair, 2 hairs,4 hairs…don’t think about it! It’s all just perception.”
I worried about being The Princess Who Doesn’t Eat The Perfectly Good Food Right In Front of Her – especially in a recession! Not that anyone was even accusing me. I really think my judgment was clouded: I felt traumatized by my dad’s purple bleeding finger. As I looked at it, I contemplated how much unpleasantness I have tolerate to just get along. I thought maybe I “should” just take the good with the bad…the veggies with the hair.
Simultaneously, I felt pressure to be tough enough to consume slightly foul food; I longed to be as feminine and particular as the Princess and the Pea; and I also felt self-conscious about how gross it is to eat hair-tainted food. I said to them, “If I do eat it, you can’t judge me!!” They laughed and I was assured that it really was no big deal.
After I politely and bravely finished eating a large portion of this hair-tainted food that was supposedly no grosser than everything else we ever eat, my mom quipped: “…of course, WE all would have sent it back, if there was hair in OUR food. Pbbst…just kidding!” They all laughed at her ‘zinger’ while I gaped, defeated. However, it wasn’t long before my brother reached over to take a bite from the mound of soft crunchy noodles left on my plate. I said “Aha! So you WOULD have eaten it!” My mom said “Oh heck yeah he would! Without a thought!” And then it hit me! All that worrying about what I “should” do, and I missed the obvious solution: I could have given my tainted “Vegetable Delight” to my Brother! He would not care about the hair. And I could have eaten the veggie spring roll leftover from the appetizer: thus negating any talk of ordering more, while maintaining decorum by participating in the meal.
We left the restaurant laughing and in good spirits, but I was thinking that maybe next time we could skip the restaurant to cozy up at my apartment for soup and a movie. Trauma aside, I had fun with my family and I gleaned a valuable lesson. Reinhold Niebuhr articulated the essence of what I learned perfectly in his “Serenity Prayer:”
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change; (like what happened to my dad’s finger)
courage to change the things I can; (like how I didn’t need to eat that hair tainted food)
and wisdom to know the difference.
