Soap Opera - Live!

Greetings from Yankee-land. I travelled alone to Oregon this round. Got in yesterday past midnight, picked up my car at the airport and drove to the hotel. Had a pretty good trip but am now awake at 3am in the morning with jetlag syndrome. So thought I would blog about an incident that happened at a restaurant today.

I went out to a Thai restaurant for my first dinner. Ordered my fav green curry and was happily tucking in. There were only a few other ppl dining. Half-way during my meal, an American couple came in and sat at the table behind me.

I could hear them talking quite clearly. At first, I didn't pay much attention as I was too busy stuffing my face. Then later I pricked up my ears when I heard the woman speaking about dining alone because I wondered if she was refering to me. She was talking about how she hated eating alone, and describing a traumatic past incident when she had been forced to eat alone. The conversation went on something like this:

Woman: Have you had to eat alone before?
Man: Yeah, lots of times.
Woman: I don't like eating alone
Man: When we are married, we can always have dinner together and you won't have to eat alone. We are soul-mates, which means we are 2 people who really understand and know each other well
Woman: Do you really mean that?
Man: Yes
Woman: Oh, I love you
Man: I love you too

At that point, I wondered whether I was really in a restaurant or had accidentally stumbled onto a soap opera movie set. It's a good thing I had my back to them so my facial expressions was hidden. But I couldn't resist doing a few wretching and gagging sounds once I was out in the car park :)

But this post is not all fun and games. Here's my 2-cent worth of thoughts to ponder...
1) American culture is prone to the melodramatic. Is this real or are ppl imagining the ideal life on a TV set?
2) Fear of being alone is not a reason to be with someone
3) I have a phobia of NCP ppl (my self-coined acronym for "Needy Clingy ppl")

About Fengel

The character Fengel is a dragon from a storybook. Fengel, or just “Fangs” to friends, was my online nickname which might be familiar to those who knew me 10 years back.

Fengel is not an evil dragon. The infamous Smaug just gave dragons around the world a bad name. Most dragons, like this one, just like to be left in peace and quiet.

As a typical dragon who lives in a cavern, Fengel spends most of it’s days dozing on a huge pile of treasure. There’s not much else to do in Fengel’s life, other than guarding it’s treasure, and incinerating any would-be-thieves to ashes. They didn't make shopping malls large enough to accommodate dragons back in those days.

To spice up a dull day, some more enterprising visitors to Fengel’s Lair may challenge it to a riddling game. If they win, they get to take a gold coin. And if they lose, they just have to go away and leave Fengel in peace. Not a bad deal at all.

Unfortunately, some adventurers just can’t leave their thieving ways alone, so Fengel has no choice but to teach these wicked villains a lesson. Maybe something in the order of…umm… breathing fire at them…and tossing them over the cliff edge!