The Education of Ms. Alongadingdong

one of the perks about living in a third worl -err.. i mean developing- country is the wonderfully cheap labor. now don't get the wrong impression; i'd never exploit that labor to make shitloads of money in the global market - mining diamonds in africa or producing t-shirts and sneakers in asia or exporting wives in eastern europe, for instance. but i would be totally willing to hire a vietnamese woman to keep my room tidy (and balcony), do my laundry (including ironing my shirts), sweep all 4 floors of the house (mop at least once a week), wash the dishes (don't forget to bring down any i've left in my room), clean both bathrooms (and i mean clean), don't talk to me or make eye contact (unless initiated by me), and of course, make my bed 6 days a week for no more than 3 bucks a day. i know what you're thinking: "isn't that a bit much?" well it's split between 6 people so at less than 50 cents a day, i'd say she's a bargain!

but unfortunately, you really do get what you pay for. in the ten months we've lived in the house, we've already gone through four maids (cleaning ladies, housekeepers, indentured servants, whatever). two were fired: one, for requesting more money; the other for taking the last few drops of tiana's super special expensive shampoo, and may (or may not) have stolen some spare change from mike and alison. the other two both quit because one found it "too demeaning" and the other, our first, who talked to herself incessantly and always rearranged my legos regardless of whether or not they were in sexually explicit positions, according to the grapevine, "hated" us.

so that brings us to number 5: bong. i think the nicest thing i can say about her is that despite being straight from the countryside, she doesn't have a totally fucked up bumpkin mug. oh and i like the fact that her bicycle hardly takes up any of the space reserved for our motorbikes, unlike our former maids. and unlike the last one, she doesn't bring her 6 year old son to the house to help her out. so she's great, except that we're the first family she's worked for since moving to the city, and popping her maid cherry has kinda made a mess everywhere: clothes ruined from bleeding, plates with food stuff still stuck to them, toilets generously decorated with logs, etc.

a total bonghead for sure, but no one wants to be bothered with finding another replacement so we've decided to try guiding her a bit. what follows is based on a list of grievances and recommendations the house agreed upon a few nights ago. i hope tiana (or a kind reader with extensive knowledge of vietnamese) can find the time to translate it.

dearest bong,

you're not a very good maid, but i believe you can vastly improve your skills as a housekeeper by heeding my advice:

1) lucky for you, ice doesn't make itself, or you'd be just about out of a job. listen, my drinks have to be ice cold. got that? maybe where you're from a semi-chilled drink straight from the refrigerator is acceptable. or maybe you're unfamiliar with this whole refrigerator thing, which wouldn't at all surprise me because you didn't seem to know how to flush a toilet before coming to our house. but whatever it is, stop wasting time cleaning the damn ice cube trays and definitely definitely don't put them away in drawers. get a friggin clue, bong.

now because i'm a nice guy, i'll help you out. ice is really really cold water. so cold that it's hard. it can be made in just 2 simple steps. the first step consists of filling the ice cube tray with water and putting it in the freezer. yes, the colder part of the "electric cold box." upon completion of the first step, you should proceed immediately to the second and final step, which is to wait. oh yeah, and don't eat our ice.

2) maybe it's unfair to chide you about something you seriously might never have seen before so we'll give you a pass on the whole ice thing. but goddammit, what the fuck is the matter with your nose? my clothes smell like rotten jock strap, and i know they didn't smell that way when you got them. and it's not just my clothes that reek; everyone in the house has got a bit of a sour milk odor emanating from them and it's making me sick. take note of this: clothes should be returned to us smelling better than when you receive them. simple enough, right? i mean, what the hell are you doing anyway, washing our clothes with bong water? [note to tiana: the pun may not translate but include it anyway.]

but don't cry about it. try this: first, scrap whatever concept of "clean" you learned in your village. from now on, sniff each garment before putting it in my closet and then sniff your arm pits. if there is even a remote similarity, put that shit back in my hamper and start the process all over again, but this time use more detergent.

3) where's my blue and yellow striped button down? last week it was my cotton khakis and now it's this. bottomline: it's unacceptable. find it, fix it, give it back, or buy me a new one. i don't care that you'd have to spend your entire month's salary on it; it''s the only way you'll learn. it's called tough love. and yes, we do love our bongalongadingdong.

i know there are 6 people in the house, and sometimes you get confused with who owns what, so i'll make it a little bit easier for you to keep track. first off, any item of clothing that seems either freakishly large or, conversely, pygmy-like, goes straight to euan and tiana's room. the same goes for anything sex-related that turns up in the wash. second, i don't wear women's clothing. and even if i did, it would be impolite to assume i did, so don't leave any g-strings in my room. if anything, we can sort it out later.

ok so that leaves me and mike, and here you have some options. you could just not be a moron and remember. or you could learn our distinctive smells: mike's is a poignant, sea-breezy musk, tempered by just a hint of oak in autumn; i, on the other hand, smell like baloney. but given that your olfactory senses are decidedly, shall we say, unrefined, perhaps we should train some goldfish to help you remember which clothes are mike's and which are mine. but it's coming out of your salary. [by the way, mike, if you own a pair of boxers featuring dogs jumping through hoops and fetching things, it's in my closet.]

4) speaking of salary, according to tiana, you want to move in because, supposedly, your roommate has been having sex with her boyfriend while you're in the room and that bothers you. first, let me just say that if that really is the case, then you're moving into the wrong house. but i think you just wanna save some extra cash by freeloading off of us and you know what, it's not gonna happen. i mean sure, we could be totally charitable and let you sleep in the vestibule on the roof, or next to the washer machine behind the kitchen, or underneath the stairs. but where would the ants sleep? the cockroaches? i'm sorry, bong, but they've been here a lot longer than you. and they clean up after me all the time. and i don't pay them shit. or rather, that's all i pay them. so unless you're willing to accept an alternative form of payment for your janitorial services, sorry, but there are no vacancies.

5) you should learn to speak english.




best of luck to you,
mat

The Real Life Cautionary Tale Of Khanh Nguyen

beepbeepbeep BEEP BEEP beepbeepbeep

khanh dropped his whistle and eagerly reached into his pocket to grab his nokia. the message was displayed before his eyes could even focus. though he knew exactly what it would say, actually seeing the words caused something in his gut to erupt and it took everything he had just to swallow. when he finally caught hold of himself, he ran down the street to get his motorbike, abandoning his whistle and arm waving duties at the intersection. the day he'd been waiting for had finally come.

on the way to the hospital he was overwhelmed by a wave of emotions. in the past year his life had transformed in a way no one could have ever predicted, and it was all thanks to one girl - diem. he thought back on that fateful night not yet one year ago when she flew past him on a white honda spacy wearing a hot pink, skin tight ao dai. she was statuesque with smooth, milky white skin that sharply contrasted with her long, black streaming hair. never had he witnessed a more breathtaking beauty.

his jaw was still agape when two young men drove up and attempted to snatch her purse. without thinking, he sped up and kicked the side of the would-be thief's motorbike which knocked them off balance and caused them to crash head on into the back of a cyclo driver. the accident killed the poor old man and one of the guys on the motorbike. the other was paralyzed from the waist down and reportedly committed suicide last month by tying himself to his wheelchair and rolling off a bridge straight to the bottom of saigon river.

from this terrible tragedy a wonderful, if unlikely, relationship blossomed between diem and khanh. she was spectacularly beautiful and from a fairly wealthy family. poor khanh, however, who dropped out of high school to work in a dog meat restaurant, had only an old dilapidated motorbike to his name. yet diem saw in him an unusual kindness that trumped her urges for a man that could shower her with money. over time, this simple mutual affection forged an unbreakable bond between them, and together they found solace in simple pleasures such as strolling hand in hand through the park or sitting near the river to gaze at the stars.

they ate as meagerly as they entertained themselves, settling for dishes of nothing but rice because diem was a strict vegetarian. she helped him get a job working the night shift at a local tofu processing warehouse, where he often brought home chunks of nourishing bean for his precious queen. then one day, word of his heroic deed reached the local police chief who offered khanh a job as a traffic intersection manager which he accepted immediately. that night, he told diem the good news and they joyfully celebrated by uniting in the most sacred of sexual unions for the first time.

9 months later here he was, driving like mad to be with diem at this momentous consummation of their storybook relationship: the birth of their first born. it had been rather obvious just a few weeks after their having made love that diem was indeed bearing a child, as her waistline had expanded in accordance with her appetite. however, far from disappointed, khanh was reinvigorated with a grand sense of paternal responsibility, the likes of which he had never before felt. the well-being of the unborn child soon became the focus of his every thought and action.

though it was difficult making ends meet, he believed his faith in god would help him through the scrape-to-get-by times. he continued to work both jobs and regarded every dong as a single brick in the foundation of his family's future. he made sure diem was always well-fed as she steadily gained weight, and otherwise saved up as much as he could. after about 6 months, they had just barely enough money to move into a dingy, 2 bedroom apartment on the outskirts of the city, and they couldn't have been happier.

when he reached the hospital he ran in and was directed straight to the delivery room. his eyes lit up when he saw diem, as if it were the first time he'd ever set his eyes upon her. except now she was almost a hundred pounds heavier: her eyes were sunken in behind her big, baggy cheeks; laying back, her chin multiplied to match the layers of flab in her torso; and her legs were so thick that he now had nowhere else to sit but on her thighs whenever they rode together on his motorbike.

nevertheless, he loved her, and gave her a kiss on her big, squishy forehead to reassure her, but just at that moment she let out a noxious puff of bowel perfume. this signaled to the doctors that she was ready to give birth, so khanh quickly stepped out of the way. "wow," he thought, "this is it." all of his hopes and dreams were about to be brought before him by the good lord himself. what would he say? "welcome khanh junior! looking mighty strong!" or perhaps, "hello there little diem! my miniature angel!"

he couldn't help but think about his own parents, who were both killed when a militant vegetarian detonated a bomb at the family slaughterhouse. what would they say if they were still alive? what would they think of their son's life now? how would they feel about his vegetarian wife?

and before he knew it, it happened. but what he was expecting to see come out of her impossibly stretched vagina, namely, a tiny human, did not. instead he looked in awe as fat began spewing from her into an ever-growing mound of lard, which looked like the kind you would find on an uncooked piece of rump roast, or at the ends of a rack of prime rib - the whitish, gelatinous, chewy kind that is responsible for giving the choicest meats their undeniably delicious flavor. this continued to ooze and gurgle out of her vagina like mayonnaise through a firehose, piling up and overflowing onto the floor. then, inexplicably, diem began scooping it up by the fistfuls and greedily shoving it in her mouth, all the while mumbling something that sounded like "num-nums."

the doctor's exact words were, "i'm sorry mr. nguyen, it's a fat... just fat." khanh stood and watched silently until remarking, "that's it. that's the last time i ever do her in the butt."

-the end-