Blunt Wit

So for my last blog I offered up A terrible confession of an imaginary affliction in which I afflicted my poor mother with imaginary tuberculosis to escape the clutches of a smoke deranged serial killer.

The week prior to that fateful train trip we were nestled around a circular table of a ritzy hotel restaurant high above the Shanghai skyline. Around the dais sat my friend Dave, his girlfriend, his Japanese godmother, my mom and me.

An outbreak of Hepatitis A raged in the streets below, apparently ignited by a rogue shellfish some days earlier. I could be wrong but I could have sworn I saw crustacean wanted posters dotting the city. For the uninitiated, Hep A spreads like wildfire, mostly through improper food handling. The Chinese government had practically locked down the entire city. Food stands and most low-end restaurants were shuttered. And it seemed as if banks were being robbed right and left as everyone wore suspicious white face masks.

Being the self appointed expert, I took the liberty of ordering a pot of Jiaozi, or boiled dumplings, for everyone. I then haughtily went about explaining the proper technique for eating these scrumptious delights properly.
“First step is to grab your bowl just like so.”
I poured a smidge of soy sauce into my square bowl.
“Not too much, not too little.”
“Dip in just like so … and eat.”

Everyone fired silent darts at my condescending and typically long-winded explanation as they were hungry after a long day of sightseeing. When the dumplings arrived, they soy sauced up their respective bowls and dove into them with gusto. Just then the waiter came up and with a look of sheer horror blurted out,
“You are all eating out of the ashtrays!”

Everybody simultaneously barfed up their partially digested dumplings. My face beeted red. The waiter immediately changed out our ashtrays for proper dipping bowls. I tried to make light of the situation,
“Look on the bright side. At least by using ashtrays we were significantly cutting down our risk of contracting Hep A!”

So tell me, what’s your most embarrassing moment?

© 2008 Bluntwit.com

Today I must finally assuage my conscious and confess my inveterate moral turpitude as for years I’ve been harboring a deep, dark secret. In short, I’ve been a bad boy.

The wellspring of my guilt occurred in the yingwo, or hard sleeper section, of a 35 hour train trip from Beijing to Hong Kong some years ago. I was traveling with my mother who had decided to visit China for the very first time and take advantage of the fact that her eldest son had been studying there for a year. He neglected to tell her he still couldn’t use chopsticks or even fly a kite properly.

Ah, and for the uninitiated, the accommodations on the train to Hell are more comfortable than your average yingwo.

Anyway, when we arrived at our assigned cubby hole there were folks huddled around the single fold down table puffing furiously on unfiltered cigarettes.

Ok my memory might be playing tricks on me. Let’s try again.

Anyway these two smokers barely noticed us through the haze as we piled into the upper bunks on either side. The shorter of the two wore black and sort of glared at the world through the shifty eyes of a possible serial killer. The other one had that dull stare of an unwitting accomplice. Together they scared me.

Once the train had pulled away the two men redoubled their smoking. My Mom, clearly in agony, looked across at me and said, “Tell them to stop smoking. I can’t breathe. And if you don’t, I WILL.” (Not that she could, as she only spoke the sliverest of Chinese and they didn’t speak even a wink of English).

Now I had a quandary. I had lived in China for a while and had various run-ins with these lawless types, impervious to any of the decorum that keeps a normal, polite society from falling to pieces. They would sooner kill you as spit on you. And there was the whole ‘face’ issue. You must never, ever cause such ruffians to lose face. So I wavered. And my mother suffered and seethed. She again threatened to take matters into her own hand when suddenly it came to me!

“Cough,” I said to her, “Loudly and often.”
She looked perplexed so I repeated my entreaty with maniac zeal.
“Cough. Cough. Cough.” She hacked.

I approached them nervously. I noticed the smaller man’s yellow, nicotine-stained fingers as he took a long, lazy drag.
“I apologize in advance,” I said in Chinese, “but the woman here is my mother and she has been afflicted with a bad case of Tuberculosis and your cigarette smoke is inflaming her raw, gnarled lungs.”

At that both men’s eyes grew wide with fright as they extinguished their cigarettes and rushed off to find a safer locale. Thus, we enjoyed the entire trip in relative smoke-free seclusion. My mother asked me what I said to them and I told her that I had simply asked politely that they not smoke as it bothered her.

To this day I have not confessed the fact I afflicted her with such a malevolent, spur-of-the-moment imaginary disease. I thought putting the story out there and confessing in the relative anonymity of the blogosphere would start the healing process. Sorry Mom.

Do you have any deep, dark secrets you to want to own up to and assuage your conflicted conscious?