Turkish Freebie

The man at the counter at the kebab place in Itaewon remembered me from two weeks before and kept making eyes at me and cracking jokes.  These Turkish men sure know how to flirt.  He put meat in my falafel.  Thanks?  Perhaps he was trying to be nice and giving me a freebie.  Thanks? Thankfully, it was probably lamb, so I could just pick it out and eat the sandwich.  Had it been pork, I’d have to throw the entire sandwich away.

2015

Murphy’s Law for a Vegetarian

There’s a Harmony Mart supermarket two blocks from where I live.  They always play really loud dance music.  I don’t linger long in the aisles because the frantic pounding can give you a headache.  I don’t understand why it has to be so ear-splittingly loud.   Often, there’s a tallish, chubby, mustachioed man wearing a white cap, bib apron and a headset who stands near the produce section announcing the specials of the day.  He always talks to me, but I shy away because everything he says (“Where from?”  Or “Are you teacher?”) is heard by all the staff and shoppers over the loudspeaker.

One day, he wasn’t wearing the headset.  So when he beckoned me to go talk to him, I went.  He greeted me, asked what meat I liked and promised to give me a good price.  I looked down and realized the meat display case was between us.  “I don’t eat meat,” I answered.  “No meat?!”  I shook my head.  He then switched to English, as if to convince me, “Steak is delicious!”  I shrugged my shoulders apologetically.  He shook his head in disbelief either at the fact that he’d met a nonmeat-eater or that his foolproof plan to seduce me with meat discounts had crumbled. 

Just my luck:  the one guy who wants to chat me up is a butcher.

October 2012