CUSTOMER FOR EVER A DECADE

Normally on Wednesday I would go to a regular place for lunch, smoke a pipe afterwards, do errands and shopping, then head to a bakery for afternoon tea and an egg tart. Followed by another pipeful. The regular place is on vacation till next month, and I haven't gone to that bakery in months. Largely because of four of the regulars. Those being older American born Chinese gentlemen. There are three other places to which I do not go. One of them has a tableful of discourteous middle-aged Toishanese in the afternoon on Wednesdays, one of them showed that they really didn't give a damn about my patronage, and at the last the owner has several times has been apathetic. I tip well, and I do not smell bad.
I tip well because I want you to remember me favourably the next time.
If you have seats, I wish to enjoy my food and beverage there.
And if I greet you, it would be nice to greet me back.

All of the places referenced are in Chinatown. On my days off I like to go there because it's the safest neighborhood in San Francisco, with a hospital and pharmacy where I can get my refills, there are vegetables and condiments I depend upon there, I enjoy the foods, snacks, and milk tea, and I can smoke a pipeful in an alley without having suburban earthmoms or wokey clean-living freaks scream at me that I'm poisoning the planet and their lungs.

But I am white, and a grouchy pissant to boot. So understandably, I do not go there for the people. There are many whom I like, and some regular places to which I go, but largely 'no'. Evenso, the places I no longer frequent are less than half the places which I like.

The Wednesday bakery that I no longer visit has gorgeous cakes, delicious pastries, and egg tarts fresh out of the oven (蛋撻啱啱出爐 'daan taat ngaam ngaam chut lou') right about tea time. And I really like their egg tarts. But, as I prevously mentioned, I am white, so in no way an old time Chinatown American born Chinese, and you may have also surmised that while my Cantonese is passable, my Toisanwaa is virtually non-existent (meaning I don't feel quite welcome at their sister establishment -- see tableful of discourteous middle-aged blisters also previously mentioned) and a grumpy old coot besides. Plus too sensitive to slights and likely to perceive deliberate rudeness when casual and mere apathetic rudeness was intended.

And I probably do smell bad.
Mm, yes, frightful.
Quite.



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