i'm only human

I made a right bloody fool of myself yesterday. Let me explain. I went to a restaurant near Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi for a spot of lunch, and ordered some chicken with rice, and some Vietnamese tea to drink. When it arrived my meal looked fantastic and was beautifully presented; the rice had even been cleverly sculpted into the shape of an Egyptian pyramid. It was almost worth a photograph.

My table was very small and cluttered with flowers, cutlery holders, and other bits and pieces, the result being that the plate containing my lovely meal could not quite fit on the table. I noticed this but thought I could manage. After my third mouthful I pressed down on a piece of chicken with my spoon (to take it off the bone), and flipped the plate up and over and down and into my lap. I paused; and then looked down. I had a meal for one, resting, stationary, on my groin. This was rather embarrassing.

As I felt the warmth of the chicken above my knees, a perplexed waitress rushed over to try to help, and clearly wanted to do something to aid me, but once on the verge of actual intervention she became unsure of whether or not it was appropriate to start grabbing at my more intimate areas. In the end she resolved her dilemma by just standing there and dissolving into a fit of giggles. In doing so she was joining the rest of the restaurant, who had all - without exception - found my mishap utterly hilarious. It was at this point I wondered what the Vietnamese for 'piss off' was.

Keeping my knees together I picked up the plate and put it back on the table and slowly began scooping the rice up in my hand, slapping it back onto the plate. Once it was all back where it had begun, I tried to assess the damage. There were no two ways about it: things didn't look good. They looked terrible in fact. The oil had left a severe, conspicuous, and dubious, stain across the front of my shorts. And the stain looked like it wasn't coming out in a hurry. My beautiful meal looked exactly what it was - a squelched mess, the rice pyramid now a sodden mass. And my reputation lay in tatters: the honour of being the laughing stock of Hanoi was mine.

I had a sufficient lack of shame to stay and eat what remained of my meal, but left as quickly as possible after, with my head held low. I'm unlikely to eat there again too often in the near future.

Today my shorts hang in my hotel bathroom, having been scrubbed hard with travel wash using one of the complementary toothbrushes that came with the room. It'll be a few hours before I know if they can be salvaged but...me thinks not.