March 10th - A Marrow Escape

It was a fairly uneventful day today. Being Sunday, everybody was in rest-mode, including yours truly, after a long night of clubbing China-style. We mostly lazed around the bedroom today, and I started the packing process. Believe it or not, this is our last week in China. 7 days from now I'll be on my way home, and then I don't know what I'll write about. Maybe I can continue my story of a Canadian boy living in um, Canada?

Anyways, the highlight of my day was when we went out for dinner with Mother-In-law's friends. You might remember the food pushers from an earlier entry. If not, I'll refresh your memory. It's this older couple who think everybody is too skinny, and needs to put on some weight to stay healthy. They use every trick in the book, from putting food on your plate for you, to masticating your steak and regurgitating it back into your mouth like a hawk feeds its young. I'm grateful for them saving me energy like that, but when I've had enough, I've had enough.

There was one item on the menu tonight that deserves at least a paragraph, maybe even a run-on sentence or two. The first dish the waitress brought out was a stack of giant hambones. Alright! Now we get to play dinosaurs! Pass me a brontosaurus bone, will ya? They even give you a pair of plastic gloves like those Subway Sandwich artists wear so you don't get any meat juice on your hands. And what's this? A straw? I didn't order a milkshake, did I?

It turns out that the straw was for a different type of beverage – a meatshake. After I was done picking all the meat off my leg joints, the idea is to stick your straw into the carpal tunnel of the hambone and suck out all the marrow. I imagined a bar for dogs – this would be the most popular drink. “Ruff, gimme a cartilage cocktail. Ruff ruff.” I felt like I was drinking gravy through a straw. Now, I usually like to enjoy a tall glass of gravy at dinner, but I prefer to drink it right out of the gravy boat, not like this.

After my 2nd femur, I decided to move on to another dish. My pusher was watching me closely. He spun the giant turntable around every time a new dish was brought out (there were about 15 dishes altogether) so that the newest dish was positioned right in front of me. Now I couldn't stay out of the line of fire. I ate and ate till half past eight, then I had to say nein. I couldn't eat another bite, honestly. To a food pusher, this means that you can have at least 2 more helpings. I was offered some sort of pastry, and I took it, thinking it was dessert. When I bit into it, the crust was filled with meat and vegetables. Dammit! I thought this was desert. Those crafty food veterans tricked me into eating another course! I must admit though, they are skilled at what they do.

After politely refusing yet another offer to put food on my plate, Mr Pusher came up with the theory that I eat too fast, and therefore I filled up too early. He began telling my Mother-In-Law that I ought to eat more slowly, and then I can eat all night. Well, if I didn't have someone trying to ram food down my throat all night, I could have eaten nice and slowly and actually enjoyed my meal! In the end, I felt pretty full, but not disgustingly stuffed, like the last time I dined with the Food Nazis. That is, if the Nazis just went around making people overeat instead of sending them to gas chambers and concentration camps. Same difference.