It's been a while...

It has. And why I've decided to blog now when I can barely feel my fucking fingertips - I don't know. (It's about 20 degrees outside - maybe 25 in here.) So our company offices are moving to midtown in the next 3 weeks or so. If nothing else, it'll be a nice change of scenery. Mainly because the "scenery" that exists here consists of used sexual paraphernalia on the floor and in coffee mugs, and a creepy little employee with horrific hygiene.

Is it wrong that my main concern is what kind of food is available in the area? I've become accustomed to the Upper West Side, as much as I've complained about what actually IS available to eat here. For some reason, I find a restaurant that has great food, at decent prices, and the motherfuckers close on me within a year! Don't they know who I work for? Show a little compassion. My coworker Jennie and I found this place called the Silk Road Palace a few months back. Now don't let the name confuse you... it's far from a fucking palace. It's a small sea of tightly-packed, rickety little tables that are sometimes topped with some sort of residue, but all in all, not that bad. You walk inside and are greeted by one of three people. There's "Evil" (the angry skinny little woman with tight, thin lips who scowls at you when you order), "Wine Guy" ( the delivery/busboy/wine poorer who has since become our best lunch friend), and "Tranny". Tranny is a cross between a little hard-working boy, and... well... a small set of breasts. She takes your order, usually is at the register when you leave, and basically is helpful only when you need more soy sauce. You do not ask Evil for soy sauce. We've seen her get very upset with customers who complain about food or want extra anything. She'll stand over them and if you look very very closely, you'll see tiny horns peek out of her temples when she's particularly angry. The Silk Road Palace is usually filled with very old men and women.... and then there's us. We order the same thing every time, for the most part, so we try and make the visit as pleasant as possible without upsetting the beast. Did I mention the main reason we go there is you get a free carafe of wine with your lunch special? Oh yes... it's advertised as 1 free carafe of wine per customer, per meal. Wine Guy gives us 4! He usually grins at us when we come in.. like there's something "special" in the wine he's serving, but we don't care... we go back to work good and buzzed, and had a great-tasting greasy chinese lunch to go with it.

Lately, I've become concerned. We went into Silk Road as usual, and were seated. Evil comes to our table and says 2 beef chow fun, spring rolls, scallion pancake, no rice right? Then...... she SMILED at me. Jennie's eyes pretty much said it all. Now, it wasn't that she had major dental issues that would have normally frightened away a hungry customer, but it was that the smile had this sinister "I'm going to put you in tomorrow's spring roll if you say another word" effect. It made us both extremely uncomfortable - the smile AND the fact that she remembered what we order. Wine Guy gave us more wine and I even got a smile on the way out. After months of going there, what would possess Evil to do this? She's actually YELLED at me before. Twice!

1. I had asked if we could have more chow fun noodles instead of the rice that comes with it. I thought she didnt understand me when she said "uhh.. no comes with rice", so I repeated myself, and I got a very stern NO, accompanied by an "I will gouge your eyeball out with my teeth" look that made Jennie want to leave.

2. The next time, I tried to pay with a credit card.... for the second time. Yes, ok my fault. I was told the first time I went that they didn't take credit card, but I had forgotten... maybe it was the wine. So I put the card on the table. "AY! CASH ONLY!", she shouts from across the room. I cowered in the corner and sifted through my pockets to find the cash.

In short, I don't know what her deal is. Maybe she knows we're leaving the neighborhood and there will be no more Fun to be had. Jennie and I generally talk about how much we hate our jobs, and often how much her service sucks while we're there for the hour. Oh, I love Fun. Fun and wine is what gets me through a typical Sporn week. That and watching Jennie get busted for coming back to work shit-faced and flushed. Joe will tell her, "Wow, it's smells like alcohol in here... have you been drinking?" Jennie looks confused, "Ummm, no why?" I love it. Hopefully midtown will have it's own version of Fun. Something tells me it's a lost cause. Maybe I can convince my boss to hire Wine Guy. He's hard-working, foreign, heavy handed, it's perfect... maybe he cleans mugs too.