Father: Always at home doing nothing…
Mother: I’m working too
Father: You call this working? A little bit of money you call this working?
Mother: What a little bit of money? Three, four thousand not money?
Father: What three, four thousand? I thought is two thousand? Now become three, four thousand?
Mother: Two thousand is also money ok!
Father: (scoffs)
Mother: What, if I didn’t work, you think the kids will get to eat such good food? People everyday eat home cooked food, and we go out to eat. Where do you think all the money comes from?
Father: Comes from me!
REFLECTION
Some time back, around June, we (greedy people) had a sushi buffet at Pasir Ris. Being a total cheapskate/”kiasu”/typical Singaporean, we crammed ourselves with food. I mean, it’s a buffet! And buffet equates to unlimited food, so we might as well eat as much as we could, right? Right. But the thing is, we screwed up our orders. So whatever food we ordered (a really huge amount to begin with), got multiplied twofold.
Yes. Imagine that. All the food that we cheapskates ordered, times two. Needless to say, we couldn’t finish all of our orders. Believe us, we DID try. We tried so hard to shove all the sushi down, to the extent that 2 of us threw up afterwards. (Nigel and Ryan. Poor things, but still, HAHAHAHA.) But anyway, with all of the untouched food on the table, we were bound to be charged for food wastage. Being cheapskate (yes, emphasis on our cheapskate-ness again), we couldn’t allow that to happen.
So a genius (I forgot who) suggested shoving sushi rice underneath the sushi plates, then stacking the plates up so that the rice underneath wouldn’t be seen. It worked. Azmyra was awesome at stuffing rice underneath plates. One by one, the sushi started to vanish. And so, we thought we were safe – we won’t be charged for food wastage!
Well, that was before the waitress came along, wanting to clear our vertically supreme plates. She lifted a stack of plates, and ooops, rice fell out from below!
I swear I never laughed so hard in my life.
Luckily for us, the waitress was pretty nice and she let us off.
Last night, we had a sushi buffet again. You might have thought that we’ve learnt our lesson and not order so much food. Honestly, I thought so too. But no, all of us overestimated ourselves again. We ordered waaaaay more than we could consume. And the worst part is, this time, the circumstances wouldn’t allow us to stack rice underneath plates. (The amazing stacker wasn’t present to help us stack too.) The most we could do was to send a plate of salmon sashimi back to the conveyor belt, that’s all.
So Jiayi asked for a plastic bag. I gave her mine.
Yes yes, I know, so sinful. We all know that. Felt really bad too, but it was the last resort. (Whaaaat, you can’t possibly expect us to pay for food wastage!)
By the way Nigel puked again this time round.
We’re such gluttons.
Yes, I feel it’s a great sin to waste food, although I’ve done it before. Now, I just avoid buffets. I think restaurants implemented the ‘excess food’ charge for a reason – to keep the REAL gluttons happy.
I’ve graded the dialogue assignment as it is, though it was meant to be a quarrel between your parents over the fact your dad went out with his friends and forgot to inform your mum.