The Lessons of the Chopsticks

If you're like me, the thought of going for sushi makes you sweat.  Not the food, the food rocks--it's whole and fresh and good for you and so delicious that if you had the money you'd take out an add in the NYTimes and tell everyone (okay, maybe you'd just post it on your Facebook or Twitter account, but still).  The sweaty pits?...it's the chopsticks.  My little wooden twin adversaries...they taunt me with their perfect posture and hygiencially wrapped attitude.  I hyperventilate at the thought a dinnermate might laugh at my ineptitude. 

It isn't that I haven't tried to use chopsticks.  I've tried using chopsticks in Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Korean and Burmese restaurants.  I've had tutorials, I've watched YouTube, I've been humiliated by children and elderly alike.  My most likely to succeed move was the poke.  'You're not suppose to poke the food with a chop stick,' you say.  Ya, well, buzz off-I do!  My husband is mortified.  Waitresses gather behind the curtain to giggle.  Children point.  I ask for a fork.  Friends have stated to me "I feel most comfortable with chopsticks in my hand."  I secretly think, 'I wonder how they would feel up your...'  Whoa!  See, the chop sticks are making me lose it!

However, recently I went on a vacation.  I had some goals:  Relax.  Don't return e-mail.  Don't read small children books at 8PM.  Go dancing.  And use chopsticks for an entire meal.  I didn't want to tempt fate, so I told no one of my grand plan.  We land in San Francisco and after checking into our hotel immediately head to Chinatown.  They bring me a fork.  I see NYC decided to call ahead and warn their West Coast sister city.  Thanks for nothing.

My husband is in a better mood than normal (maybe it's that we aren't paying a babysitter and he can't get called into work or the fact that I've already made an ass of myself at the airport and he figures it's out of the way already)...he begins a new tutorial.  Bend the wrist.  Check.  Loosen your grip.  My plastic (yes- a step up!) have fallen on the table and floor.  The waiter scurries over to bring me a new set and apologize.  Um, I'm the one that dropped them, please stop apologizing.  Oh crap.  He has 10 more sets in his front pocket--what have I gotten myself into?!

Lunch was not as successful as I would have dreamed, but I did manage to have a couple bites of hubbie's chow mein direct from the chop sticks.  Round 2:  Dinner.  We head for sushi.  We share a bottle of wine and we are presented with gorgeous porcelein chop sticks (I look around for the reality TV cameras, and check if they have placed padding around our table).  Must drink more wine.  And then it happens.  I decide to fess up:  "Rod, I am going to eat this entire meal with the chopsticks."  He promises not to try to steal the food I don't grab on the first dozen attempts.  It's fun.  We're laughing.  He sits next to me.  We laugh some more, I eat an entire dragon roll.  We finish all our food, all our wine and we are still laughing and even (ahem) nuzzling each other.  Someone asks if we're on our honeymoon.  I laugh harder, if they only knew!

Husband points out that I have just eaten an entire meal with nothing but chopsticks.  No fingers.  No forks.  And best of all, the 'poke' didn't figure into the equation!  We go on to eat 3 more meals with chopsticks that week.  Today, between meetings I ran into this new wok restaurant in the center of town.  I placed my take out order:  brown rice, shrimp, bok choy & onions.  She asked, do you need a fork or chopsticks.  Chopsticks I say.  Whoa!  Yep, I really want them. 

I proceed to eat the entire meal with chopsticks and can't believe I never 'got it' before.  What's funny is that 3 weeks ago I would have told you I would NEVER learn to eat with chopsticks.  I was a lost cause.  But the thing is, like anything in life, give it some air, some attention and some (positive) attitude and you will likely be successful.  A few platitiudes come to mind here:

Whether you think you can or you think you can't:  you're right!  ~Henry Ford

"Never, never, never, never, never, never give up!"  ~Winston Churchill

 

What can you change your perception of right now?  What do you think you 'can't' do that you can?  You CAN live the life you always dreamed of!  Hey, just look at me, I'm doing it, one chopstick at a time!

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Lunch was not as successful as I would have dreamed, but I did manage to have a couple bites of hubbie's chow mein direct from the chop sticks.

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Believe me I know what you are talking about as the first time I hold a chopsticks in my hands was a real disaster

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