Tales from the Pit - How To Screw With Their Minds

The following incident occurred some weeks ago and ultimately gave me a taste of what it felt like to really screw around with a stranger's mind in a deliciously satisfying and humorous manner. It also will likely solidify my belief that I can be a mendacious bastard.

It was after the lunch rush was settling down. The tables were still mostly filled with customers chatting and talking about their workplace lives or other topics of generic interest to fill the time until their breaks expired. After that, it's back to the office or the factory for work until freedom rings at five o'clock. For some of us, it's not that simple. Especially those of us who work 10+ hour days.

I was counting the number of orders we had taken through the day when the next customer walked in through the door. Once glance at him and I knew that he wasn't a regular customer but a newbie testing the waters of this new BBQ. I stopped my counting and faced the man, inwardly annoyed that I had my break time interrupted.

"Hi, how may I help you?" I said, plastering my best faje customer service smile on my face, resisting the urge to sigh and yawn.

"Well, you guys don't seem to have any ham..." He said, scanning our menu board looking for his desired meat. Mentally, I groaned since I had dealt with many an inquiry regarding ham before.

In reality, we really do not have ham. My parents had to make some very select purchases so as a result, we carried beef, chicken, Italian sausage, and pork ribs as the meats we had available. Ham is rather expensive to purchase and also takes time to properly prep and cook in our pit oven. My personal preference is for barbecued beef or sometimes pulled pork if it's good. Barbecued ham is just something that was sacrificed for the sake of the recession and also my own family's knowledge of barbecuing meats since they learned it in Texas. Besides, why would you eat ham when you can have beef anyway? But I digress.

"No, we don't. We have beef, chicken, sausage, and pork ribs mainly, sir." I replied in a well-rehearsed manner.

"Why no ham?" He inquired, looking extremely confused.

I paused, trying to formulate my reply. Generally, I offer reasons such as "It's the economy" or "Prices were too much" or some other logical, rational explanation for our lack of ham.

But not this time.

I don't know how or why but a thought popped into my head which told me to take a gamble. I figured I was a bit tired or irritated or I just didn't like like dealing with people who want ham. I knew I stopped caring at this point

"Well, sir, it's because we're Jewish."

I stared at him, with an absolute straight face, directly in the eyes. My eyes bored into his, visualizing the back of his skull past all the cerebral tissues and brain matter.

He paused at me and blinked, attempting to formulate words. His mouth moved, yet no words came out.

"Oh. Well, er...um...erm..." He stuttered, clearly at a loss for words.

He was noticeably uncomfortable, squirming at the counter and seeking a way out of this rather unique racial-ethnic situation. I knew he had likely never met Asian Jews before and anything he said would likely offend my being Asian or my being Jewish. I had a feeling the ACLU would not look so kindly upon such an offense, if it actually was possible. So naturally, he was stuck in a coup de grace between a rock and a hard place. However, after 10 seconds of his awkwardness, I felt pity so it was time to drop the charade.

"Sir, I'm not Jewish. I'm kidding with you."

"OH! Okay." He looked immensely relieved and exhaled suddenly. I half-expected him to be furious and suddenly turn into Rambo and begin whaling at me with his fists or guns. "For a minute there, I thought-"

"Yeah, forget about it. I recommend the beef plate if you're starting out here." I suggested, pointed to it on our menu.

"Oh, that sounds good."

So, the moral of the story is that Asian Jews are rare and screwing with customers' minds takes a lot of balls.