It is now Thursday morning, the day after "Testing my Patience #198" went down. I am still in Vung Tau and I have finally settled down after missing my dinner the night before. I am in a coffee shop on the hillside overlooking the ocean. It is a beautiful spot. I order a mango shake, but sans the milk. My friend translates my butchered Vietnamese into something intelligible and away we go.
The waiter comes back and says no mango. Ok, papaya I say. He comes back with a rather pale looking papaya shake, which I instantly recognize as dairy contamination. I take note of this and voice my concern. My friend asks for clarification. Yes, there is milk. What the fuck? Did I not just ask for no milk? Ok, mistakes are made. It's okay. Settle down. They'll make me a new one.
Only they didn't. They left that one on the table. Sorry man, we fucked up, but this one is on you, they seemed to be saying. I ordered an iced coffee and waited for them to take away the milk shake that was elevating my blood pressure. In the end, they finally took it away. It wasn't about the money. Because it was peanuts. It was and is about principle. If you fuck up, it's on you. That's the way it goes.
But not here. The bill came and there it was. I couldn't do anything, but suck it up and accept that things are different here in Vietnam. You can't expect things to be the same way as they are back home. I have to quickly accept that if I'm going to keep my cool. It's taking me some time. It's really hard to stay cool when it's so hot. And when you're right, but you're really wrong.
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