Harold & Kumar go to Waffle House
Once in a while I get too heavy on the politics, like I did in my last blog entry, and people then tell me to chill the f*** out and write something a bit on the lighter side. I often think that people don’t care about the personal shit going on in my life, but I guess once in a while it’s ok to expound on one’s own lousy existence, especially if it’s funny.
I recently went to the Final Four in Atlanta this year to watch Georgetown play. The plans came together very last minute when Georgetown managed to get past the Elite 8. To avoid the expensive NYC-ATL airplane tickets, I flew down to Raleigh-Durham where Jason lives, and we road-tripped the 6 hours down to HOTlanta. Besides saving about half the cost of airfare, during those 6 hours I was able to act like CBS, and say I was literally on the "The Road to the Final Four." I like road-tripping, and it was a good time for us to catch up on each others’ lives.
The Hoyas lost, and the long return trip to Durham was inevitable. However we were entertained by an episode that occurred along the way. We stopped for dinner at a Waffle House restaurant in an intensely hick-infested little town in South Carolina. Full disclosure: I honestly have nothing against hicks, or for that matter South Carolina, having spent many formative years in Indiana, Missouri, and Ohio. In fact I feel right at home amongst them, as Yankee as I might seem.
That was a good thing. This particular Waffle House was a capsule of much of Southern America today: blacks and whites self-segregated, not because a sign told them to, but because they wanted to. Several black tables on the left, and several white tables on the right, and a group of pimply white staff horsing around at the counter because it wasn’t too busy. Viewing a China-man and and Injun like the two of us was easily an event for them all. Not a single one of them a lick above dirt-poor, sitting down to massive, greasy meals of waffles, eggs, bacon, sausage, and grits for somewhere between $3 - $5. Of course we had to stop by to be a
part of this wonderful experience.
The food was cheap, satisfyingly greasy and tasty. At the end of the meal, our middle-aged waitress came to the table to give us our check. And then it happened.
She said, "Um, there’s something I want to say to you, but I probably shouldn’t."
Of course, at that point you want to hear it because it’s irresistible, whether it’s something tragic in a horror flick kind of way, like, "Come with me to the back, sir, I’ll show you where we make our sausages," or not.
We nodded, and she said, "You know we gave you names when you walked in."
"What?" we asked, looking at each other nervously, hoping she wouldn’t say Dead and Deader.
"Harold and Kumar." She started giggling. Jason and I breathed a sigh of relief, at least on the inside while keeping up our brave facade on the outside.
"So you’ve seen it?" I asked, glad to make conversation about one of my favorite movies with an Indian lead, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. Having brushed against both the real-life Harold and Kumar in New York, Kal Penn (the night after I saw the movie in ‘04) and John Cho (last night at a Korean party), and having fancied ourselves as H & K during several adventures, I connected to the film on several levels.
"Of course. Many times."
On the way out we passed by the cook, who himself seemed to be straight out of a movie: intense Southern accent, disgustingly nasty apron, barrel chest, large hairy arms, weather-beaten face. "It’s Harold and Kumar!" said the waitress to him and also us, to kind of repeat the theme of the evening. "We were talking about you!"
The cook boomed a laugh. "Thayt’s rayt, Hayrold en Kyooomar!" It was all in good fun, all in good nature, and in a strange way Jason and I were connected to these two as fans of good film, even if we were worlds apart. I knew that they would be memorable to us for a lifetime, as we would be to them, if only because he was one of the 1.5 billion Chinese people out there, and I was one of the 1.5 billion Indians, and they were two of the unremarkable hicks you would find a dime a dozen in Anytown, USA. That night we were special, dammit!
In a rare moment of near-inspiration, in an almost Martin Luther King, Jr.- like voice, I said, "Harold and Kumar go to Waffle House." Everyone laughed.
