am i the asshole?: a missed thai food order

when people see the child in you, and also act as their inner child

Recently I’ve been trying to really prioritize making sure I eat on time. I can go whole days forgetting to leave time to get lunch, and this has been giving me pretty bad stomachaches. I’ve vowed to stop letting my work usurp my healthy routine again, because I can’t afford to do it.

But it’s hard. I’ll leave 30 minutes and find it’s not enough if I’m ordering something, then rushing back to a cafe, or if I was in my home office and forget to cook something the night before, and then I have to rush 10 minutes to the only sushi place by my house even though I’m sick of eating sushi by now. Meal planning is stressful; cooking is stressful; spending money I don’t have is also stressful. But above all, feeling the burn of hunger and the dull thump in my forehead is the worst part.

So the other day, I tried to change that. I had to commute to Manhattan to run errands for work, so I camped out at a cafe at 8am and tried to leave room in my meetings for a quick 15 minute break while transitioning to the next thing. When I had two minutes during my two hour meeting block, I called ahead to a Thai place next to my cafe and asked for a coconut chicken curry rice bowl, the cheapest thing on the menu that looked appetizing. I asked for the food to be ready by 12:40. The person agreed. I was excited and proud of myself for not dragging out sustenance until late in the afternoon again.

At 12:45, 15 minutes before my in person appointment and a 5 minute walk from the venue, I rushed over to the Thai place to pick up my order. When I told my name to the lady, her face dropped as she stared at my receipt. She’d forgotten to tell the cooks about my order.

I panicked and, to my horror, felt my body reflexively get aggravated, my tone get halting and angry. I consciously noticed there were spring rolls to go already prepared, so I could just grab those. But I still felt irrationally upset about my plans not working out, especially after it’d been so much mental labor to prioritize eating when I was worried about money and worried I was losing time.

I tried to calm myself down, but I still felt the choked up anger emanate from my tone, “How long will it take for the order?” The woman, who was clearly an immigrant, looked frightened and apologetic that I was so upset. She quickly promised me only 5 minutes, but I feared I didn’t have 5 minutes to spare. I knew the person I was meeting might be fine if I showed up a bit late to our appointment, but I still felt so angry I couldn’t explain it. I wanted to stomp and cry, like why can’t I catch a break when I’m trying so damn hard to be good to myself, why can’t this one thing work out?

I knew I wasn’t really mad at the woman, but I was starting to feel mad that she could definitely see me losing my shit. I felt myself slipping, wanting desperately to not freak her out because I knew these things happen, but I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. She was also panicking, clicking buttons on the iPad, asking me if I wanted the order still, and she’d give me a discount, and it was her fault. I shook my head, shoving the spring rolls at her and feeling the paradoxical anguish well up of sorriness for my plight, but also wanting her to not feel blamed, but also wanting her to be less sorry so I could be more mad at her. I finished paying, gave up on looking composed and mumbled to just cancel the chicken rice order.

I grabbed my spring rolls and rushed out the door where I let out a muffled wail outside, unable to control myself, feeling like a sad, bratty child, feeling uncontrollably guilty that I’d scared the poor woman.

I sat down on a chair by the tables outside and quickly opened the container, munching on the rolls while trying to wipe the tears off my face before anyone noticed. I didn’t realize the woman could see me through the window of the restaurant until I looked up and accidentally made eye contact with her as she came out toward me.

“Oh fuck, leave me alone,” I thought, my inner monologue cutting through my haze of emotion as I ducked my head instinctively.

She came out holding a to go container of my chicken rice, to my horror and held it in front of me. “You, for free,” she said, anxiously smiling. “Because my fault, you didn’t get order. Complimentary!”

I stared at her, feeling absolutely like shit. It’d be worse if I refused the rice right now, but I felt so horrible about what was happening that it seemed for a second that the two things would be of equal agony to bear.

“Oh.. okay,” I stuttered. She pressed the container into my hands, smiled anxiously again, and said, “Sorry,” while bowing her head and turning around to walk back inside.

In that moment, both of our inner children were at odds with each other. Mine was wailing for food, and hers was wailing to make me stop being so upset.

I sat dumbfounded for a second. I noticed it was 12:57, so I quickly wolfed down my spring rolls and sprinted over to my next appointment with the to go bag in my hands.

Hours later, I sank onto a bench, picking at my food in my lap, trying to get around the knot in my stomach that made me cry harder as I eat it.

This woman was so kind to me, yet I couldn’t appreciate the convenience she brought me. Instead, I feel literally so self conscious that she caught me having a meltdown, and it’s impossible to ignore that the presence of that meltdown made her feel so guilty that she gave me my order for free.

I know it was her choice and that’s life, restaurant work is hard and she shouldn’t have missed your order, you’re right as the customer, but the impact of seeing her face completely contort in terror at my [sad to admit, but] adult tantrum makes me feel like the world’s most entitled prick. I know I was busy having my own experience, but it was impossible to ignore that she was having her own experience in reaction to my experience.

My greatest fear is people doing things out of obligation, or almost coercion, and no example has ever felt more clear cut than this of the woman feeling essentially guilted into giving me free food. I’m beating myself up for letting myself show my feelings, for they had consequences that I didn’t really feel emotionally prepared to handle.

I suddenly saw everything through this woman’s eyes, and I saw how much she wanted to care for me for some reason, how much she felt horrible for letting me down, and how she totally reacted blindly to please me in ways I never wanted to feel.

I suddenly understood, too, how many women in my life have had their own internal reactions to other people seeing their emotions, and how I refused to let myself feel that way. Because my heart breaking over how my heart breaking breaks other people’s hearts is too much of a cognitive load to bear.

I felt so horrible at how I affected her that a somatic memory popped up for me — of my mother almost weeping from how she didn’t know how to care for me when I was upset, of my father shutting down when I cried, of my friends looking on awkwardly when they hurt me, of the knife that would be in my side when I saw people doing things stiltedly. Their awkwardness triggered me, to where I didn’t want people to have to clumsily learn how to care for me because I’d feel the reluctance cut into me like no other.

The lesson here is to not shut down, not vow again to never let yourself feel this feeling again. The lesson here is to prop yourself up with a feeling of abundance, one I tried to summon up by smiling crookedly at this woman as I walked away and caught her watching me through the window.

The lesson is to not let my guilt at their guilt at my guilt choke me to death.

The lesson is to trust it’ll come easier over time, and to for now be grateful that just as I was fed that day, I can continue to feed and nourish myself regarding others’ complex emotions as well.