No Soup For You!
There are three things in life that are certain: death, taxes, and the Wall Street Journal's hatred of China. China, on the other hand, hates me. Or at least the Chinese do. Or at least the Chinese and/or non-Chinese who own Chinese restaurants in Durham.
Alone for dinner last night, without the car, I did some laundry and settled in to order some food. Having planned on ordering Chinese all day I as really jonesin' for some hot and sour soup. So I kicked off my shoes and called the closest restaurant and asked if they delivered. The woman replied by asking me my address. I told her where I lived (which is no more than 0.5 miles away).
She replied "Is that an apartment or a home." I answered that it was a home.
Then she says, "Oh, we never delivered there before."
"No, this is my first time calling."
"Oh, then I don't think we deliver. Sorry." And then she hung up!
So I called her back. I politely told her I thought we got cut off. But no, she assured me that she hung up on me because she won't deliver to a home. Only to an apartment. (This was of course beginning to feel like this time that a store in Prague wouldn't take my credit card because it wasn't Thursday.) But then she clarified. They only deliver to Duke Apartments. In case you are wondering, those apartments are a) sketchy and b) about three times farther away than my house. So, yeah still crazy but in a different way.
It turns out, however, that it wasn't only this crazy lady who wouldn't deliver to me. Not one single Chinese restaurant in a 5 mile radius (and there are more than you might expect) would deliver. Period. What do sick people do in this town? Meals on Wheels? Clearly there is room for a new product here without even having to come up with an original idea.
Now, had I known this illogical non-delivery policy that has plagued my city, I would have just walked the half mile to the China Inn and been done with it. Except it was raining. Oh, and Durham has no sidewalks! That's right. There are no sidewalks. I'm like not even exaggerating. If you were to take the ratio of sidewalks to streets it would be like 1:45623579.
Sometimes this town confuses me.
1 comment:
Hey, Michael, having grown up in NYC, where we take sidewalks for granted and in many other places in the country, where sidewalks are often considered novel and foreign, it doesn't surprise me when people sometimes get run over, especially at night. One young couple walking on the side of a road around here died shortly after they were married. How many human lives can sidewalks save? Let's not even mention the stress levels!
And how good can Chinese food be in Durham? Actually, maybe really good. I found a really good Chinese place in McAlester, Oklahoma when I was doing some work out there. McAlester has a big sign when you enter town that says "Welcome to McAlester - Home of Italians and Cowboys!" It doesn't say anything about Chinese food.
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