Crouching Daughter, Flying Tea

While having dim sum lunch with my mom at The Oriental the other day, I said something that made her laugh so hard, she sent chrysanthemum tea flying out of her nose and onto the front of my shirt.

Sadly, this simply made us laugh even more. It was tea waterworks galore.

In the end, I don't know who was left feeling more embarrassed -- me, with my lovely new tea-print pattern smeared across the front of my chest, or my mom, whose tea-spraying incident had been witnessed by everyone within a three-table radius.

Fortunately, we were having a late lunch, so only a table of confused Taiwanese tourists, a thirty-something couple out on a lunch date, and a semi-famous politician and his cronies were there to witness it.

The waitresses scurried away, leaving us to fend for ourselves. Mom dabbed at her face while I dealt with my tea-print pattern, feeling like a grade A idiot as I dabbed lamely at my chest while in full public view. Still, the laughter did not die down. In between hiccups, Mom managed to gasp out that Buddha was going to punish me for laughing at my mother during a time of crisis.

She's probably right. Everyone knows that one of the cardinal rules of Buddhism is: Thou shalt not laugh at Choking Mom.

I totally laughed at Choking Mom.

Despite running away earlier, the restaurant staff eventually returned and were very nice in that they offered to replace my now drenched red-pork salapao (due to sprayed tea from over yonder on Mom's side of the table) with a shiny new one from the oven.

A replacement salapao? Pfft. I could care less. I am appalled the restaurant staff did not at least attempt the Heimlich maneuver on Choking Mom.

Kidding aside, I am totally going to keep my mouth shut during meals from now on. Really. And I'm definitely gonna simmer down on the lame, dirty jokes, too.

Currently Playing: Goo Goo Doll's Dizzy Up the Girl album. This CD rocks, people, as does Johnny Rzeznik's voice. Dizzy, Slide, Broadway, and Black Balloon are personal faves, as is Iris (the perfect teenage angst song), but mostly because this was the first GGD song I'd ever heard, thanks to City of Angels (which was watched with my TLCAGS babes in 11th grade following a very memorable incident with a less-than-friendly makeup lady at the mall), starring Meg Ryan and Nicholas Cage, who my mom only ever refers to as "that guy with the really tense face who looks like he puad kee mak mak**."

Currently Reading: The dental student forum over at Student Doctor Network. After reading the The Top Tens that Indicate You are a Dental Student, I feel very fortunate in that I have not yet dreamt of being chased by a block of wax, nor have I started passing out dental floss to friends after meals. If I ever do, someone please slap me!

**Puad kee mak mak = Really, really needs to take a shit. Please pardon the vulgarity, but that's how we talk in my house. Plus, watch any random Nicholas Cage movie and you will see that my mom was, well, simply speaking the truth.