Eyes Rolling

I worked out for an hour today with my trainer. After she put me through a hard workout, my stomach was growling. Since it is all rainy and grey today, I found it to be a perfect excuse to get me a nice bowl of wonton soup. I went over to my favorite place, 'Chef's', in El Cerrito, and waited in line to pick up my hot, yummy, dumpling soup. The women behind the counter were Chinese, and had a very friendly attitude. They did however, have a thick accent. So, the gentleman before me had to have her repeat a couple things several times. There was a lady before him that was waiting for her food at the front of the line. When I finally got to the register to pay for my yummy soup, the Chinese woman went to put my food together in a bag. While she was doing that, the lady that was waiting next to me asked the Chinese woman, "Excuse me, we're going to eat the food here." The Chinese woman responded, "I'm sorry, but this line is for Take-Out only. You can sit at the outside tables." The lady did not understand her, and she asked, "What?" The Chinese woman repeated what she said. She still did not understand her. She then grew frustrated, huffed and puffed, looked annoyed, and asked me, "What did she say?" Actually, this wouldn't have bothered me as much if she had just asked me politely.

Now, I understand that I can be a tad sensitive to situations like this. But, since this has happened to me so many times, I automatically feel my two eyeballs start to roll up and around to the back of my head. So, I responded to her, "She said that this is the Take-Out line only. The dining room is probably reserved for sit-down guests." The lady replied, "oh, okay." You see, because I must look Chinejapaviethaikorino, I automatically can translate FOB. Even though I was born here, and even though there were big signs where we were standing that read, "Take-Out Only," I have the mystical power of translating English, and reading it as well.

Today I got to thinking..... if that FOB-ie lady had a thick-ass English, French, or Australian accent, would the customer be less annoyed? Probably. (And yes, sometimes it is difficult to understand people with these accents. When I went to Australia, I nodded and smiled most of the time.) We love to glorify "white" people accents. We hate all the others. So all you FOB's with Indian, Spanish, Chinese, Korean accents, learn to speak, will ya?

What I should have done when the lady asked me to translate English, was to have replied, "She say sol-ly. Dis-u la-ine pour Take-u-Out ohn-nie. Dineeng loom pour sitting-down custo-mahs."