I was Accidentally Racist: Asian Edition!

So...I was accidentally racist again last night. This time may have been the most mortifying thus far. I don't know why this keeps happening to me (again and again and again...) but I hate it. I would take this time to prove to you that I'm not racist, but I feel like people who say racist things and then work overtime to prove how not racist they are actually the biggest racists on the planet. So I'm not saying I'm not racist. But I'm also not saying I'm not, not racist. Walk with me...

As I'm sure you've picked up by now, I've been in a bit of a way recently. I'm one of those people where if one aspect of my life is going downhill (i.e. work...in a big way) then everything else seems like it's going downhill too and I just sit here all day thinking about how everything is spiraling out of control and there's nothing I can do about it except turn off the lights, put on The Smith's Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want and dramatically writhe, writhe, writhe, check my email, writhe, writhe, change into comfy pants, writhe. You know. I'm That Guy.

I decided to skip the gym last night and instead curl up on the couch with a bottle of wine, an order of pad thai and my lap top to do some extensive job hunting. Having already taken off my pants the minute I got home (per usual,) I ordered Thai food to be delivered. I was told that my order would take about 40 minutes and decided to take that time to return a phone call to College Roommate Danielle. Like clockwork, I got a call 40 minutes later from the Thai food delivery guy saying that he was downstairs and I needed to come down to get my food. Right off the bat I was irritated. If I have to go through the trauma of putting my pants back on and physically moving myself downstairs anyway, I might as well have gotten carry-out, but! whatevs. I was just psyched my food was there.

I hung up with Danielle, begrudgingly put pants back on and went downstairs and there was no one in the lobby. "Have you seen a Thai food delivery guy?" I asked our doorman. "Well, there was a food delivery guy just here but he said he was looking for **** New Hampshire Avenue, which doesn't exist." God damnit. They got my address wrong. I live on **** 20th Street, not **** New Hampshire. The smell of sweet, sweet Thai food was still wafting through the lobby and I drooled on the pants I resented so. I thanked the doorman, went upstairs and called the delivery guy back. I gave him my correct address, he giggled, I wept and he said he would be there in five minutes.

Five minutes later, I went back downstairs and waited for another 15 minutes. Finally I got a call from the delivery guy, who was at **** N Street. Gah! 20th street! Not N! COME ON DELIVERY GUY! You're cutting into my precious, precious writhing time! I corrected my address for him (again) and he assured me that he'd be there in 20 minutes. I sighed, went back upstairs and poured myself a glass of wine.

20 minutes later, feeling famished, tired and slightly buzzed, I returned to the lobby where there was a young Asian man waiting. Still slightly irritated, I walked up to him, motioned towards the plastic bag in his hand in a miffed tone said, "Hey. I think that's mine." He shifted his eyes around the room and stared at me inquisitively. I motioned a twenty towards him, "For Meghan, right?" I asked impatiently, "Pad thai and crispy tofu?" He paused and then in an accent that may have been from New Jersey said, "Um. I live here."

Oh. My. God. This was not the delivery guy at all. This was just some random Asian kid who lives in my building who I was shoving a twenty dollar bill in the face of and demanding the contents of what I could now clearly see was a CVS bag from.

I turned bright red. A wave of nausea rocked my entire body and I literally hid my face behind my hands as I cried, "OH MY FUCKING GAWD. I AM SO. SO. SO SORRY." He didn't laugh, but he didn't get mad either. He just sort of nodded at me like, "Yeah...this must be really embarrassing for you," which kind of made it worse. "I'm so sorry! I saw— I thought— I've been waiting and I just thought—" I mumbled. He nodded again. Just then, the real Thai food delivery guy walked in, waved and pointed to the receipt on the bag. My eyes lit up and I motioned towards the Thai food guy and then back at my neighbor and said, "SEE?!"

What I meant by "SEE?!" was that I really was waiting for Thai food and wasn't just assuming that an Asian person has an order of pad thai on him at any given moment. However, directly after I stopped motioning between the two of them, with a "RIGHT?!" look on my face, I realized that I was coming off a little too "SEE?! ALL YOU SQUINTY FUCKERS LOOK ALIKE TO ME!" Which is really, really not how I meant it.

I tipped the delivery guy $10 and in the truest definition of the word, ran back up to my apartment.

I have never been so mortified in all of my life. But in my defense, I was fucking starving. I saw an Asian man in flip-flops carrying a plastic bag—I assumed it was dinner time. A + B = C. Do I think I was wrong in this situation? Of course I do. Do I think my neighbor wasn't exactly helping himself? Maybe.

The ultimate irony here is that the entire reason Danielle called me in the first place was to tell me about something embarrassing that happened to her that day because she knew of all people, I would be able to relate. After we hung up I legitimately thought to myself, "Hmm. That's odd...something senseless and mortifying hasn't happened to me in a month of Sundays...Welp! Looks like someone's turning over a new leaf!"and strutted off all cocky-like to go to ask my Asian neighbor how tending the rice fields is working out for him.

Guess I should look for a new apartment as well as a new job tonight...Greeeeat.