The evening was very pleasant as we strolled to the
"Glutton's Square" where we intended to have our dinner.
The sun was setting and the air was cool.
John, Aileen and I sat down at a table. The stall-owner came and we ordered some fried mee.
Soon the large plate of piping-hot mee arrived and
we happily put some into our bowls and began eating.
It was delicious.
John, the talkative one, still managed to say an
unintelligible word or two between gulps of food.
Suddenly John winced as his teeth came against
something unchewable. Cursing, he spat out the contents
of his mouth onto the table. "What the heck!" he cursed
again.
Much to my disgust, John ran a finger through the
half-chewed food. Then, uttering a cry of triumph, he
picked up a staple from the food.
Aileen and I immediately stopped chewing and
expelled the food from our mouths. The thought of eating
staples was revulsive. I wondered if I had already
swallowed some staples.
With a fork, Aileen searched through the rest of the mee on the plate. She found two more staples and a short
length of raffia string!
Goodness, I thought, what other rubbish was there
in the food?
We summoned the stall-owner to our table. His
smile vanished when we showed him the staples and string.
Then he apologized for the matter, said that we did not
have to pay and furthermore would make a fresh plate of mee for us, free of charge.
We got up, showed him our sour faces and walked
off. I, for one, seemed to have lost my appetite. |