"How do I use these sticks?"

Wednesday night, Holly and I were out for dinner with my parents at Japanese Village. The food was pretty good, but the prices were rather expensive (not surprising). Waiting to be seated (reservation and waiting to be seated? wtf?), we sat in the bar/waiting area up front. As part of the decorations, there's a small Japanese drum placed beside the seats. I was sooo tempted to hit it despite the sign saying "Do not touch". Hell, I was sooo tempted to headbutt it. Headbutting doesn't count as touching, right?

We sat in the teppanyaki area. There was a couple to our left and a large group (two women, six? men) taking up the rest of the grill/table/seating area. Now, all of these people were caucasian. Caucasian + chopsticks = comedy. I'll say that there are many caucasians that can use chopsticks pretty darn well, but probably the vast majority cannot. There was one guy on the left, part of the large group, that hadn't even broken apart his chopsticks. Surprisingly, he was faring pretty well. I imagine it was more fork-like with both chopsticks still fused together.

The second guy, though, had his chopsticks apart. Poor decision on his part. He was sitting to our right and was another member of the group. I should mention that this group was already seated when we arrived. They had also started their appetizers and had made a decent start into the beer. This made this second guy amusing, but verging on obnoxious. Watching this guy attempt to eat his salad with chopsticks was funny. When the salad arrived, he fumbled with the chopsticks for a bit before asking his friend "how do I use these sticks?" That desparate plea for help didn't amount to much as his friend tried to explain. Closely watching everybody else using their chopsticks didn't help him either. Eventually he gave up and requested a fork. He got three of them...

While having dessert (and the group was having more beers), their conversation got louder again. One of the women was wearing a nice looking, low-cut dress. Not to be mean (well, ok, to be a little mean...), but she looked like she'd been around the block a few times. I commented on that to Holly (whispered in her ear, of course). This would come up again soon. A couple minutes later, their conversation turned onto business trips they'd had (I gather most of them worked together). One guy boasted about the cheapest hotel room he'd ever gotten: $17. Another guy, in turn, boasted about staying in a 'per-hour' hotel. This woman then proclaimed that she never paid for hotels and always stayed with people she knew. Somebody shot back saying that she didn't know them until AFTER she stayed with them. Zing! Borderline-obnoxious-guy then said (quietly) something about her and Government Street. I wasn't going to mention it.

Yep, entertaining night.

That is all.