Chinese Food At first it seemed some­what unreal, that the per­son I was speak­ing to on the phone was pos­si­bly a robot or one of those “Madame Mer­coni” fortune-telling car­ni­val machines come to life. You know the ones with spooky glow­ing eyes, a rigid Char­lie McCarthy puppet-like jaw and palm fac­ing up eager for your quar­ter and an open-mind.

The voice on the other end of the line quickly went from semi-unintelligible to socks-in-the-mouth syn­drome and then silence. Silence? Did I say some­thing? Offend some­one pos­si­bly? No, prob­a­bly not. It wasn’t one of those kind of con­ver­sa­tions, where two peo­ple man­age to agi­tate one another in 15 words or less. Fol­low­ing the silence, the per­son, a woman, maybe in her mid-30s, I wasn’t sure, chimed back in. She finally spoke, “Yes? Hmm? What you want?”.

I slid the menu across my desk, quickly scanned some food choices and then responded that I wanted a combo. “What combo? Yes? What? Hmm?”, she said once again in a rushed, there-isn’t-enough-time left today atti­tude. Right then I had an impul­sive desire to ask her some of the ques­tions I had on my mind through­out the week.

Ques­tions like if there really is a mean­ing to life (and I’m sure that answer could be quite lengthy) I’ve often won­dered if there’s a con­densed answer in the form of a tabbed, color-coded Cliff Notes guide? Or, would I ever be able to sched­ule a meet­ing with the Dalai Lama in my life­time and had if were blessed with such an oppor­tu­nity, what would be the first thing I’d say?

Even­tu­ally I snapped out of that men­tal state and told her that I’d have the orange chicken today, with an extra for­tune cookie because if any­thing I was con­vinced that lit­tle slip of paper might be able to answer at least one of my questions.