IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY

My apartment mate stayed home yesterday, because after three weeks of dealing with her brother's passing, arranging the funeral, taking care of loose ends, family business, other emotionally draining stuff, as well as his grieving friends, she needs a few mental health days. She went out to have burgers with another brother and his wife, who had been speaking to a lawyer. Of course I wasn't included because I never am.
I am no one's actual family. Just a socially lopsided person.
This is standard, it's been that way for a long time.
It still affects me but I'm used to it.

So I went out to do some errands, and after visiting my bank, and the pharmacy for my refills, headed into a Vietnamese sandwich joint in Chinatown. Hadn't been there in a while. Eating out rather than always preparing food at home is my substitute for actually eating with others.

[Sometimes dining with groups of other people, while enjoyable on one level, leaves me feeling out of place and awkward. I don't deal very well with being a social butterfly. But I do miss it.]

It's something that started developing at my last office job in downtown, and has simply gotten more extreme since then.

While I was happily devouring my lunch and enjoying strong coffee with condensed milk (no ice), at various times couples or groups of white tourists entered, looked at the menu above the counter, and left without buying anything. Which irritated me. What the heck, dudes, our food isn't good enough for y'all? Too strange? Surely they have Vietnamese sandwich shops in Bun Le Fouck, Louisiana and Mudhole, Mississippi? Were you expecting something else? The name of the place tells you exactly what you'll find, dammit!
You wanted nuggets and fries perhaps?


This is also very common at all the Chinatown bakeries, because, apparently, flaky pastries and lovely cakes are quite utterly unknown to inhabitants of the primitive hinterland, where they only have Van De Kamps and Entenmans, poor sods.


Maybe it was the total absence of slop coffee.
They'd really be S.O.L. in North Beach.

Travel isn't good for Americans.
It confuses them so.


No ketchup.



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