It was a day like any other Saturday. Cold, dreary, and gloomy with a sepulchral feel outside. How I loathed and hated winter, as it twisted me and affected me with a mood to equally match the depressing landscape. But as the snow melted and bits of sunlight came through, there was always hope for better times ahead.
Ignorance on the other hand remains a constant.
An African-American man came in and placed an order. Judging by his grizzled beard with bits of gray and the rough cut of his hands, I felt that he was a truck driver. This was made more obvious by the coat with many patches of various states he had on him. I wrote down his order and yelled it back to my aunt and mother to get a move on. It had been rather slow so we were lethargic. As I turned back to the register, the man suddenly spoke to me.
"So, what nationality are you? Mexican?"
"No, sir." I replied. At this point, incredulity had struck me. To be honest, do I look Mexican at all? Hell, my pseudo-Jewish friend is closer to being Mexican than I am. I was not offended really but more troubled by the misidentification.
"Are you Korean?"
"No."
"Well, what are you?"
"I'm Vietnamese."
The slow dawn of realization spread across his face as his neural synapses managed to connect the dots. However, what he said next once again made me seriously consider if he was trying to offend me.
"You guys don't have dogs or cats on this menu, do you?" He asked, in a somewhat desperate manner. His eyes grew wide as he pointed and scanned our menu.
"Nope." I deadpanned. At this point, I figured there's no point in trying to get offended since I felt we had passed beyond that into an unidentified region.
"Oh, okay. Because I know that it's a delicacy in some parts of you know....Asia."
"Yes, it is a delicacy back in the homeland. However, we do not serve cats or dogs."
"Oh, okay. I think it's a bit weird, you know. I mean...here, we keep them as pets but over there...I mean hell, they eat them!"
He chuckled slightly, slapping me on the shoulder. Naturally, I was determining whether my next approach would be to respond to that or call the ACLU for racial defamation though I doubt it would actually work.
"Well, some people keep pigs and chickens as pets. And we eat them too."
"Yeah, but you don't see a black man walking around with a chicken here on a leash."
"No, but I know some keep pigs as pets around." I retorted, somewhat mildly exasperated at this juncture in our conversation.
"Oh, yeah, that's true. Quite true. But hell, I'm just kidding with you, boss." He jovially remarked, laughing again.
"Oh, I would hope so."
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