So it was a Sunday evening

And we were having dinner at Ollie's, this place in Times Square that serves Chinese food. We ate a lot, of course-roast duck, char siew and soy sauce chicken, spinach with garlic etc. In the midst of our meal this old ang moh man next to us asks if he can borrow some sugar (for his Chinese tea). But that's not the point (although we did start whispering in Mandarin about sugar and Chinese tea, and hopefully he didn't notice).

The point is, towards the end of the meal, I suddenly decided to say very loudly:

"I think it's very undignified to eat alone."

And at that point, I was signing for the bill (credit cards are bad [but don't worry dad, it wasn't your sub-card]) when Weiming looked at me, smiled, and tapped my leg with his leg. The smile was a very curious smile.

"No, no, I don't mean Marilyn," who was eating alone (and not understanding what was going on. "What, what?") while the two of us waited for her to finish.

"I mean, ALONE, like, by yourself."

And so Weiming continued giving me that curious smile and tapping my leg, when I realized something about the man who borrowed the sugar.

I've never sworn so much in such a short time.

We got the fortune cookies and siam-ed out of the place, while Marilyn was still trying to figure out what happened.