Mixed Up Ethnic Food at Fast Food Restaurant

I ordered only one item at the Wendy's drive through: the Southwest Taco Salad. At the first window, I gave them the exact change. At the second window, they handed me two bags: one for the refrigerated part of the salad and one for the chili. Since it was a simple order, I didn't bother to check the contents of the bags.

When I got home, I found that the bag did include the bowl of taco salad. However, they gave me two packets of oriental sesame dressing, a packet of almonds, and a packet of fried oriental noddles.

I know that America is the melting pot of the world but I'm not about to put sesame dressing on my taco salad.

I'm thankful that I'm not rotting away in a Kyrgyz prison.

What I am thankful to God for: I'm thankful that I'm not rotting away in a Kyrgyz prison.

That's sort of a running joke for Thanksgiving ever since I returned home from Kyrgyzstan.

For those of you who haven't heard the story, I was arrested for illegal drug trafficking in Bishkek at the end of my summer in Kyrgyzstan. I had no illegal drug, of course, much less was I trafficking anything.

Basically, this crooked cop was trying to shake me down for money. Evidently, Americans are easy mark for this sort of scam.

Between each question concerning drugs, like "Where are you hiding the drug?", he would ask, "How much money do you have?" He was doing this while we were encircled by half a dozen other cops.

At one point, I decided to push pass the smallest guys and walk away. Amazingly, none of them tried to stop me.

But when I got to the curve where all the taxis were lined up, none of the drivers, with the exception of one, were willing to open their cab door. They had been watching the whole episode transpire and, with the exception of that one driver, nobody wanted to be involved.

When we were driving off, I asked the driver why he was willing to pick me up.

He said, "I saw what happened. God is with you."

I was thinking the same but I was doubtful that anyone would have recognized it as such much less an Uzbek Muslim man. (Later on in our conversation, I found out that he's Uzbek.)

How I'm Doing

For the last several months, I stopped corresponding with my friends. It's not that I didn't want to keep in touch with them. There, just, wasn't anything exciting going on in my life to tell. In the last couple of weeks, my friends have been sending me e-mail messages asking how I'm doing. I thought my answer was pretty amusing:

Me? I live the never-ending monotony, of meeting the demands of every day life, that slowly squelches what's left of my ambition to write the great American novel and win the Nobel prize in literature or at the very least settle for the Pulitzer.

I Am Forbidden to Have Daughters

I may have already mentioned it in another blog entry, but lately, I've been reading Colleen's blog quite regularly. In her latest entry she mentioned that she is now the assistant teacher at a preschool and she described her second day of school. Her description of preschool reminded my of my youth when my mom taught kindergarten and elementary school.

My mom was very involved with her students. Even after my mom retired from teaching she still have other people's little kids in our home all the time.

It was during this time, after she retired, in which, one day, out of the blue, my mom forbade me from having daughters. It caught me by surprise considering I was only a teenager.

No, it's not one of those Chinese things in which the potential grandparent desires a grandson. We are living in America where there is no "one child" restriction like they have in China.

As she explained it, "You are not capable of standing firm with the girls. You fold like a deck of cards whenever they ask you for permission to do something that violates the rules. If you have daughters, you will make your wife the bad guy and that's not right!"

As a teenager, I thought nothing of it. I wrote it off as my mom going on a rant because I didn't do something exactly as she wanted it done. (Frankly speaking, I think she has a mild case of OSC. In fact, I think I inherited some of her OSC traits.)

I mentioned my mom's edict to a couple of my women friends. Both said, "Yeah, I can see you making your wife the bad guy when it comes to dealing with the girls."

What? I'm not even married and they are already writing me off as a guy who would make my wife the bad guy. How fair is that!

I've always thought that I'm a fair even-handed guy. However, their response forced me to re-evaluate how I deal with kids of each gender.

Then, I had an epiphany. Whenever a child asks me for permission to do something, I usually give them a chance to plead their case.

With boys, I would rarely get a decent response from them.

I'd ask, "Why should I let you do that?"

How would they response? It's that familiar, "I don't know."

However, girls are a bit more articulate.

"It's after four. I'm not suppose to give you your cookie after four because it'll spoil your dinner."

"I was waiting for the bathroom when they passed out the cookies cause Susie was sick and I let her use the bathroom first."

Hey, that sounds to me like a good defense of her position.

"Okay, you can grab one cookie; eat it quickly."

I guess if I want to truly be even-handed, I really need to help the boys articulate their cases.

Then, again, I would make my wife the bad guy irregardless of our child's gender.

Hmmm... Maybe, I shouldn't have any children at all.