National Chopsticks Day

by | Feb 9, 2015 | 2014 Off Season | 0 comments

Happy National Chopsticks Day! It seems like only yesterday that we were celebrating Asian tableware and here we are again. Time seems to fly by when you are having fun scooping foreign cuisine out of a bowl with two pieces of wood.

I have to make a confession, I had no idea today was National Chopsticks Day. In fact, I didn’t even know that was a holiday until I received an email from Pei Wei this morning. I looked over the calendar and National Chopsticks Day didn’t seem to make it on the calendar I received from some unknown insurance guy.

National Chopsticks DayI’ve forgotten my share of anniversaries and my wife’s birthday that I wasn’t about to be in the doghouse for missing National Chopsticks Day. I jumped in the car and made it to the Hallmark Store just as they opened. I rushed past the display for the upcoming Hallmark Christmas Ornament Premiere going directly to the greeting card aisles.

After an exhausting search of every card on the rack I couldn’t seem to find any cards for Chopsticks Day. I grabbed a Spanish card and took it to the counter to see if maybe I had found a bilingual Chopsticks Day card. Is bilingual the right word if I speak English and found a Spanish card for a Chinese holiday? Wouldn’t that be a trilingual card? Is trilingual even a word? Focus! Focus! You need to get the card!

“Excuse me miss, can you tell me where the National Chopsticks Day cards are?” I asked.

The girl just stared blankly at me.

“Do you speak Spanish? Can you tell me whether this card says ‘Happy National Chopsticks Day’?” I asked

The girl again stared blankly at me then glanced at the card I was shoving in her face.

“That is a Spanish Bar Mitzvah card.” She explained

A Spanish bar mitzvah card? Did I just pass-over into the quadrilingual zone? (Raise of hands, who saw that pun coming?)
“So where are the National Chopsticks Day cards?” I asked once again.

By now I could tell the girl was getting just a little annoyed with my constant repeating of the words “National Chopsticks Day”.
“Sir, we don’t sell Chopsticks Day cards.” She said very matter-of-factly.

What kind of Hallmark store is this? Frustrated I grabbed a blank card and decided I would just kind of wing it. On my way home I stopped and got a Panda Express gift card, a fortune cookie, and a set of official Panda Express chopsticks.

I rushed into the house and went to my desk. I grabbed a photo of Josh Collmenter, the blank greeting card, the Panda Express gift card, the fortune cookie, and the chopsticks. After a moment I came up with a verse for the card and sealed all of them up in a small box and placed it on the table.

My wife came in and saw the package on the table. She opened the card and read. “To my loving wife. There is no one I would rather Tomahawk Chop-stick with than you. You are the Panda of my eyes and there is no better way for me to Express my love for you than with these authentic Americanized Chinese chopsticks that are sealed in paper for your protection. Love your Cookie husband.”

For a second I thought I saw a tear in her eye but maybe she just got a piece of fortune cookie in her eye. Either way, this is going to be one National Chopsticks Day neither of us will ever forget.

Jeff Summers

Just a digital guy in an analog world pondering the metaphysics of baseball and whether the knuckleball defies Newton's first law of motion.

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Jeff Summers

Jeff Summers

Baseball Epistemologist

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