Chicken or cheese

“Would your like your enchiladas to be chicken or cheese?”

The Mexican restaurant where I work in Tokyo has enchiladas and our customers can choose their filling. For some bizarre reason, only Americans request to have one of each (something the kitchen won’t do); everybody else in the world is able to make up their mind.

“Chicken or cheese,” he barks back.

“…”

“Chicken or cheese, what does that mean, chicken or cheese.”

This man is elongating his sentences to give himself more time. He sounds like ccccchhhhickennnn or cheeeeseeee, almost as if he were drunk on the water-like beer (Sol; just like a Corona) that he’s been taught to drink with Mexican food.

“Chicken or cheese…I don’t understand.”

I’m behind the counter making drinks and Paul, the other waiter, is standing by his side waiting for a decision. It’s a busy Saturday night and Paul needs to detach himself quickly. Paul looks at me and gives me a WTF shrug as if saying “I don’t have simpler words to explain the choices…fowl or curdled cheese fat won’t help.”

The customer’s twelve year old son is shaking his head. Somehow he managed to understand right away what was being asked from his dad.

“Chicken or cheese, chicken or cheese, am I supposed to make a choice, chicken or cheese.”

Finally he gets it.

“Can I have one of each?” We exchange looks with Paul and we both think the same thing: If you get chicken, we hope there’ll be a small bone on which you choke and we won’t do anything to help.

“Not unless you want raw chicken and burnt cheese,” says Paul in his trademark reply to indecisive Americans.

“Chicken or cheese…I suppose I’ll take the chicken.”

Paul finally detaches himself from the group and runs over to the kitchen to pick up an order that is starting to become stale due to this guy’s inability to understand the choice between chicken or cheese.

While Paul runs free, I’m forced behind the counter to listen to his conversation for the rest of the night because they set up camp in the three seats that are so close to my bar station that no matter what I do, I can’t avoid hearing them.

As soon as they leave the restaurant and the door is closed, a collective sigh of relief escapes the mouths of all the customers unfortunate enough to be within the radius of his voice. We all catch each other, and we break into laughter. “What a douche,” says one of them. How appropriate.

Turns out the guy is an investment banker who trades in securities, bonds and currencies. With his uncanny ability to process new information, no wonder we get financial crises.