Remind me to tell you about the time my husband took us to an Ethiopian Restaurant. I KNOW. Who does that? Like they have all this extra food to go around and set up restaurants and all. Anyway, remind me to tell you about the part about the baskets coming out with the tray of food and how I didn't want to use those dirty dishrags in the baskets to wash my hands. Only. That was the folded up cold bread (think giant grey crepe). For eating the food with. As there were no utensils.
And how often I kept looking for dead flies in my soup. Because the only thing I knew about Ethiopia was that my mom always used to tell me children are starving there and I had to eat everything on my plate. And the commercials depicting these children always had flies crawling on their eyeballs and in their mouths. So naturally, it would be all over any of the food they got. When they would get some, right?
And then I had no idea what I was eating off the huge sampling platter, but I was a good sport and tried almost everything, using pieces of the dirty dishrag. Naturally.
And then Sylvia busted out that whole 'hey I have to crap in my diaper only my intestines aren't fully developed yet so it sounds like machine gun diarrhea explosions over a megaphone' while we pleasantly carried our conversation over it. As if it's ENTIRELY normal for sounds like that to come from a dinner table in public. Until neighboring dishrag eaters stopped eating in unison to stare in awe of the fabulous mouth watering sounds coming from our direction. Sounds we have apparently grow too comfortable with and barely noticed prior to gawking. Which then sent me into teary-eyed, red-faced laugh resist mode.
And THEN how awesome do I feel when the waitress asks if I want to take the rest of the food home once we pay the bill? HELLOOOOOO flies on the kids' eyes come to mind again and I feel so guilty for not taking home or eating those last 3 tablespoons of brown and green foods and all those folds of dishrag still in my basket! She waited and asked again as if I should have read her mind 'I know kids are starving, I got it.' I really hesitated and then thought- well maybe they have some special program where they take care of their own and send the leftovers back to Ethiopia. I decided to leave with that idea in my head. It feels less.....wasteful?
On my way out I scratched my head in confusion when I passed framed pictures of resort-like tropical beaches and beautiful buildings.
Apparently, I don't know so much about Ethiopia.
Meanwhile, back at the car, Mike has this hidden knowledge about anything and everything Ethiopian. Like he might as well have lived there. And eaten flies. I love this about him. All the while we were eating he was thinking about their former wars and history while I am trying repeat in my head 'it's not a rag, it's not a rag' while I choke down the bread and wonder who else in their right mind decided on Ethiopian tonight as I glanced around the other filled tables. Making jokes about how I want to grab my bread at both ends, twist it up like we're in a locker room and give him a kinky snap on the rear.
I love this about us. Often each of us is on a much different page.
