the birth of a bad idea

There are reasons that we are given menus at restaurants. There are reasons that we are only allowed limited control over decision making. There are good reasons. Reasons that extend into the parts of history that are unrecorded. The fact that it's unrecorded could explain why we repeat these mistakes so often. It would seem that even cavemen had a sense of themselves and didn't want to be remembered as a fuck up.

Raw ingredients. Each in their own little bowl under a sneeze guard. You take an empty bowl and fill it with raw ingredients that you would love to eat; Carrots, broccoli, noodles, chicken, water chestnuts, corn - Hmmmmmm. Each one of these is yummy... On it's own. And some of them are okay when mixed with a limited number of the other items... but never with all of them at the same time. (HEY! You're hungry, who cares...)

Then you need to choose your "flavor"; Curry, teriyaki, Something called "House BBQ".. Garlic. And then add as much of this "flavor" as you like to your bowl of raw ingredients. Then hand these goodies to a man with a huge hot plate that will cook "your" Asian meal, for you. It will take about five minutes.

The bowl is steaming with your goodies. For some reason it doesn't look as yummy as it did when it was raw. The veggies are darker and the meat has absorbed camouflage qualities and has disappeared into the mess. It doesn't smell the way you want it to smell. You are starting to doubt your meal, but you're still hungry.

If you're with people, you can watch their facial expression slowly begin to embrace confusion over their Asian meal. Everyone will still eat their meal, but no one is eating what they want to and their faces show their displeasure.

In order to keep all meals equally bad, the cooks add hot peppers to every meal so that every meal is so hot you could sweat out parasites, colds, flus and bad personality traits. I think the cooks at these restaurants know that everyone is going to mix the wrong flavors and that they will need to be remedied with lava if the consumer is going to be able to eat it.

The displeasure is found in the fact that you made this dish and there is no one to blame for it but you. You cook bad food like this all the time when you are at home, and that didn't cost you ten bucks. You looked forward to this, like it was a job interview, or a hot date, and it soured on you because you wore shorts, brown socks and white loafers. The fact that you paid for this humiliation makes each bite even more bitter.

Menus are good. Menus are there to protect you from you. Menus do not have items with curry and teriyaki mixed together and there is a reason for that. (ask that first Asian dude that tried it 2000 years ago. He could have been one of the first cave dwellers not because he wanted to, but because no one could stand his aroma) There are reasons that we order off the menu.

Your whole life you have waited for the control that would allow you to get a larger dessert when you order it. You have waited for an extra meatball without asking for it. You have waited to create your own dishes - Your way. And even with the failure of a Mongolian You-pick-it-we-cook-it, dish, you still feel like you are going to find success in your endeavors... Fool!

With that triple curry, triple teriyaki, steaming pile of "meal" still stewing in my tummy, I have asked a fellow comic to build my web page for me. I have doubts that I will make the right choices and I need someone that had eaten at this restaurant before to order for me. So, YES, coming soon - danielrock.com. Leave it alone until she finishes it. I'm serious, don't type it in until she's done with it. She doesn't need your shit at this time. Leave it alone until she figures out how many scoops of curry to mix in with the House BBQ sauce. It should taste just like General Tsao's Chicken by the time it opens to the general public.

If it tastes like shit, then I can kill her and we can all blame her for the meal. Isn't that how we like to do it?