One of the fun things about fasting month, is my Muslim friends are always really excited about eating dinner, breaking their day-long fast. So, last week Erin and I decided to meet up with some friends at the mall to break the fast (at the time, we had hopes to share with them, but they diverted a bunch of our lead-in questions so it didn't happen). They said to meet at six, but being on rubber-time, they didn't arrive until much later. Let's say that after about twenty minutes of waiting, Erin and I were really hungry, so we decided to get a bread snack at one of the stores on the other side of the mall. We got it, and ashamed, stood behind a poll to eat it, at a place where they couldn't see us. It was delicious.
After that, we went to meet with them, ate dinner, then walked around the mall for a while. Suddenly, we were in front of that same bread store, and the conversation went like this:
I: Hey, who wants bread?
E, C, and K: No, thanks.
I: Ok!
But, in true local style, she bought bread for all of us. So, Erin and I, already very full, sat down inside the store to eat the bread that we had already eaten only an hour and fifteen minutes before that. I was on my second nibble when I noticed the staff were gawking at us--"us" being the white girls--and one of them, laughing.
Yes, I was laughed at by a tiny Asian man. Unfortunately, that's nothing new. But, to make things worse, that was just the beginning of our embarassing night.
After that, we escorted our friends to the side parking lot, to their motorcycle. On our way back, we had to cross two exit-ways from the car parking lot, which consist of a little lane, post, and gate for each (you know, the same gates you see at toll ways). So, Erin and I wait for the first car to go, he goes, we start to walk to the middle/safe zone when suddenly the gate comes heavy down Erin's shoulder. The parking guy, at this point, had seen the whole disasterous thing before it happened, and had tried to stop it, but who's to stop the stupid white girls from getting themselves chopped in two by the gate?
At that point, Erin turned to me and announced, "Oh Cass, we gotta go, I'm so embarassed. Hurry."
But, we had to wait for the second car at the second post. Thankfully, it goes, and just as we start walking, the gate comes down heavy on my shoulder.
As you can tell, we're not the brightest bulbs in the box, and I don't yet know all the lessons I'm supposed to have learned from our encounter, but...this is what happens on an all-too-regular basis.
