nasty auntie

This is just a really big rant over one really horrible auntie at my local cze char stall, so feel free to skip it.

She's so mean, and careless, and so couldn't care less about her customers. I know we don't pay a lot and really, we're not expecting fine-dining service, but come on, a little courtesy surely couldn't kill you!

There was once the Boy and I went down for dinner and we ordered gong bao chicken with rice, and baby kailan in oyster sauce. And that mean auntie took my order as take-away when it wasn't. And instead of carefully taking it out of the box, she mixed it all up and served it like that!

It was so messy, and awful and that wasn't the worst of it. You know how you need some plain rice when you're eating heavily sauced food, but here the rice had soaked up all the sauce so that the chicken which were supposed to be lightly coated in the sauce was dry, and the dried chillies which you cannot eat unless you want your throat on fire and your stomach to have an instant ulcer were all shoved everywhere and we had to pick it out super slowly, and I felt so upset and grumpy over my dinner. It was utterly impossible to eat and in the end, I gave it up as a bad job. I also felt very irritated with the Boy for pretending it was okay, and for telling that mean auntie it was okay because he also didn't like how the rice and chicken and sauce were all messed up, and he tried eating it all up to appease me - though why he thought that would appease me when I couldn't eat my own dinner I don't know - and of course he couldn't.

So today this Mean Middle-Aged Woman (hereafter known as MMAW) was at the cze char counter, and I asked for gong bao chicken and she said no more, and that only the fried rices were available. I said ok, and ordered one fried rice with salted fish. BUT not wanting to just eat oily carbs and preserved meat, I asked politely in Chinese, "Auntie, can please add extra egg?" and she said nastily, "Of course cannot."

Now those of you who speak Chinese and/or frequent cze char stalls should know that this is like the height of nastiness for kopi-tiam aunties. One of the reasons that many people patronise kopi tiams is because you can customise your food. It's not gourmet haute cuisine - just good plain food at reasonable prices. You want something more, no problem. There's a little extra charge sometimes, but again that's expected and usually not a problem.

I was stunned by her attitude, and just stammered something like, "I don't mean for free of course" and she saw my consternation and tried backpedaling, "It's not about the money. We're just too busy."

So I just kept quiet and just sat at an empty seat to wait for my food, but really I wasn't very happy because one, she could have just said nicely that that wasn't possible right now, and second, her excuse was flimsier than a house of cards. Come on, how much time does it take to crack another egg into rice?!

And later, when I went home, I found that she had given me the WRONG order. I tell you, if I go down to eat and I see MMAW is the only person manning the cze char counter, I'm totally ordering from another stall or deliberately giving my order to some other auntie.

Evil dinner-destroying woman.

And in case you think I'm being a prissy princess about things, I noticed two other families deciding to buy their dinner from another stall because they were so put off by her - with one woman even saying loudly "No no, I don't want to order from you anymore" to another one of the aunties at the cze char stall who had tried to intervene and save the situation.

Once again, evil dinner-destroying MMAW.