story

156. That moment when you realize you gave the wrong directions

May 4, 2015 by Edwin C. Leave a Comment

I was walking around the northwestern part of Mexico with my cousin after getting some tacos for breakfast (yes, for breakfast!) when I heard a familiar phrase coming out of a car stopped at a red light: Oye, muchacho!

They were asking how to get to San Carlos, a tourist area about 15 minutes northwest from where we were. I had been there many times before, so I told them to just go straight down the road and that an intersection would take them west toward San Carlos.

There was a girl sitting in the passenger seat, it looked like she was from outside of the country, and she asked me if the road pops up on the right or the left. So of course I said LEFT because heading northbound… San Carlos is on the left… except that the exit comes up on the right side and makes a loop and heads west from there.

I realized this literally two seconds after their light turned green and they left. I gave them the wrong directions.

Awkward! No, bird! It’s the other way!

But it isn’t the first time that this happens, and no I don’t mean giving the wrong directions but instead second guessing myself. At the end of exams, after an interview, after clicking “Publish” on a blog post. I guess its a karma thing that people always give me the wrong directions. Maybe I should learn how to read maps.

Does this ever happen to you?

Attacked By A Cockroach

January 30, 2013 by Edwin C. 18 Comments

143. Being afraid of something dumb

Dim orange light was reflecting off the shards of mirror on the floor as I stood there with shiny dark knuckles, wet with red. It was all over, the faceless woman would no longer be mocking me. She was gone. I vaguely remembered the tone of her voice when she told me she would always find a way back to me. Perhaps it was too soon celebrate. Then from the corner of my eye, I see her.

Scratch, scratch.

“You owe me.”

Scratch, scratch.

I opened my eyes to see the moonlight reflecting off the blades of my ceiling fan. The bright green numbers of my digital alarm clock read 3:37.

Scratch, scratch.

Was it the fan? I reached over to the night stand and clicked the button on the remote. The fan blades sped up. Click. The fan got quiet, and the blades came to a halt. Perhaps I was watching too many ghost hunting documentaries, and I knew that YouTube video on the Area 51 alien interview would come bite me in the butt later on.

Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.

It was coming from under the bed. Click. The light turned on, and the scratching became more frequent. I looked down and there she was. The biggest roach I had ever seen. My neighbor Rebecca had told me about these things, but just like her whole “alligators crossing the streets” warnings, they just seemed like stories locals would tell the new guy in Florida.

I rolled over to the other side of the bed and looked for the roach spray in the bathroom, walked to where I had seen it last and it was gone. It was on my pillow now, and it rushed over to me. I couldn’t spray my bed with chemicals. Or could I? No, bad idea. The thing looked as big as two pink erasers put together. I could see its eyes. Without losing those two black dots, I grabbed one of my bed sheets, and went straight to the living room, shutting the door behind me, turned on the television, and hoped to doze off on my own to old episodes of The Office.

No. I couldn’t let this happen. It was just a roach. Was I still dreaming? Gosh, I hoped not. I could still remember that faceless woman. So I grabbed a shoe and was determined to smash it and clean up the mess with Windex or whatever else I could find under the kitchen sink.

Quietly, I approached the door and stepped into the room. With one hand still on the doorknob, I took another step and scanned the room. No roach. I looked at the bed, and on top of the mountain of my blankets, I saw moving antennae. It was looking at me. My strategy was simple, I would knock it down to the ground with the shoe and smash it with said shoe. I walked up to it, almost wanting to let it negotiate with me before its death.

All of a sudden, the roach spread wings and flew right toward me. Instinctively, I moved over to my right and lowered my head. It buzzed right past my left ear and crashed against my dresser. I saw it struggle on the handle of a drawer and adjusted itself.

“Whoa!” I said out loud.

Then it opened its wings again and flew right toward face! I threw my arms in front of me, closed my eyes and hoped my mouth would do the same. This thing was evil. I felt the anger in it.

Tap.

I heard it bump into something else, and as soon as I opened my eyes, I saw it was adjusting its wings again. This time it was on the floor on the right side of the doorway. Was that really happening?

I closed the door and stayed in the living room that night.

The next morning, I found the roach dead. Floating in the toilet.

True story.

Special Weekend Post #1: Wrong order!

April 16, 2011 by Edwin C. 2 Comments

Now, recently a topic that has come up in an awesome (or “ahhsome”) blog I’ve been following, Ahhsome Blog has been food! Or at least, that’s what stands out the most because I’m always hungry.

Why is this relevant? Well, I just left a very awkward situation at Carl’s Jr. For those of you who are wondering

“Who is Carl Jr.?”

You need a short explanation: Here in California, we have several awesome places that are pretty common around here. I lived in Colorado for a summer, and I was surprised that nobody knew what Jack in the Box was. All of these are burger places, one of the most famous ones around here is In-N-Out. One of my Texas friends decided to live in California for two reasons: the beach and In-N-Out. Carl’s Jr. is just another one of those places.

I was driving back home with my mom and dad from a nearby bookstore, and decided to stop for a late dinner at Carl’s Jr. From the window, my mom decided to order some enchiladas from the “Green Burrito” part of Carl’s Jr (yeah, there’s hybrid fast-food places here). I wanted to try the new turkey burgers, and my dad ordered a spicy chicken sandwich and a salad. Not a big order.

We paid for our food and we saw two number sign things waiting for us on the counter. Numbers 64 and 80. We took them and sat down. After about a minute, a woman brings two trays of food toward us and we began to reach for the fries when I realized that the salad wasn’t there. I looked for my burger and it was absent. But one thing I completely overlooked was that..

The order was huge.

We had:

Two orders of chicken tenders
Criss-cut fries
Onion rings
Big hamburger
A six dollar burger
Large fries
Small fries
Chili cheese fries

Of course, we were like ‘huh?’ And as we looked around, we spotted a family looking at us. One table away from us. They were sitting there quietly, glaring. Their food was in front of us. And we couldn’t eat it. It was torture. I tried looking away from the food. A ton of questions ran through my mind at that moment. Eventually I just got up and told the woman at the counter that they got our order wrong. The other family had asked for another order of the same thing.

We got what we actually ordered and set aside the other ones as we felt the stares from the other table. They were still waiting for their food. And in the meantime it was sitting in front of other people. Their food in front of us. While we were eating other things. They must have been angry.

The whole time were just sitting there, finishing our smaller order and soon it was time to face the fact. We had their food in front of us and they still hadn’t gotten their food.

Many solutions were suggested:

“Let’s tell them that we haven’t touched it and take it to them.”

“No, let’s just ask for a bag and take it to go.”

“Are you crazy? Let’s just dig in!”

“Let’s do the right thing and give it back to the restaurant. Even if they’re gonna –oh wait, they’re going to throw it away.”

We thought of all these things while the other people just sat there. Waiting. In the end, we asked the employees what we should do, and they gave us a bag and apologized for messing up. We walked away with the hungry family’s food in a bag. As they stared at us.

What would have done?