Protect the elephants

791 days ago, I took her shopping in NY’s China town

We were looking for a Chinese table set complete with chopsticks and the likes. I am not a big fan of chopsticks, I tend to poke my eye with them while trying to insert rice, one grain at a time, into my open mouth. I mean, we got to Chinese restaurants for the food, and that food tastes just as good with a fork. But, she wanted chopsticks.

Chopsticks, for those of you who don’t know, come in many different variety. Disposable, cheap, expensive and exorbitant. She, being a woman, of course, wanted to buy the exorbitant ones. The ones she selected were made our of ivory. Not the synthetics, disgusting kind, but the real ivory that comes from elephants. They were the most beautiful chopsticks I have ever seen. Of course, ivory makes them extremely slippy and only useable by real Chinese or the cast of “friends”

Nevertheless, ignoring the total uselessness of these chopsticks to me as potential user, she decided to buy them. I refused. If we keep buying Ivory, more elephant will be killed.

She reminded me that those elephants were already dead and that if we did not buy them someone else would and she paid for the chopsticks.

She took the dead elephant remains to her place and called all her friends over for a Chinese dinner. I tried to get out of it knowing that she cooks Chinese food with an enthusiasm completely disproportionate to her skill level. The friends were nice interesting people. Bankers, stock brokers, financial analysts, the kind of people that are successful, associate themselves with successful people and have successful things to say to successful people. I felt right at home. Oozing and shmoozing from one group to the other with a lot of things to say to everyone and thoroughly enjoying myself.

Why am I telling you this story? I can’t remember?

Ah, yes, I was making a point about dead elephants. Do you think it is right to buy ivory just because the elephants are already dead?

She had cooked Kung Pao Chicken, sezuan beef and rice noodles. I still remember because I had never taste anything so disgusting in my life and have not again since.

So what is the point of this post? No point really. Just wanted to share how bad the food was. Have you ever tried to eat fried rice with super duper slippery chopsticks? You end up eating one rice at a time.

To be very honest, I couldn’t care less about the elephants, I just objected to the purchase because it was expensive and I am a cheap bastard. Of course, arguing and saying no once in a while, then reluctantly agreeing allowed me to score some brownie points with her. I was able to skip her piano recital the following week.