"A Tale On Getting What You Want" by Damairis L

     I was not even 5 yet when I learned this special skill that surpasses all others. My grandma
works at this restaurant and she has since she was 21 and I’m not sure why because she gets
paid under minimum wage since it’s such a small business and she leaves at 9 in the morning
and gets back at 9 at night AT THE EARLIEST and only gets Sundays off to play Mahjong with
her sisters. What she does is she fries food: fish, vegetables, shoes if you give it to her I’m sure
and she’ll make it taste good too. So I’m pretty sure I was sitting there, probably wearing light-up
shoes, probably eating fried cucumbers as well (like every Average Joe is found doing at some
time in the day) and my grandma lifts up that part of the counter that basically separates the
workers from the customers and starts heading towards the door. I look towards the door and
outside is a Chinese women with a heavy looking,black trash bag who’s walking past the
restaurant. Next thing I know, my grandma is yelling at her in Chinese and I have never known
Chinese because my mom is Vietnamese and my dad is Chinese so they speak English to each
other. The only Chinese I know at this point and will know at any point of my life is “fanque” which
means “tomato” because first of all, I always turned red when I cried and this occurred so often
that my family had me exorcised and secondly, because I mean my name’s “Damairis” and not
even people who only speak English get that down so my immigrant relatives must’ve given up
at some time. I swear, my Chinese side laid down some cement in their backyard and I was
there but I didn’t know how to spell yet so someone tried to spell it for me and to this day, it says
“Domeris”. So my grandma is yelling at this Chinese women and the Chinese women is yelling
back so I was thinking that they were fighting, this, this definitely sounded like they were kicking
each other in the groin with syllables if anything. The Chinese lady walks in after the war is over
and my grandma comes over to me and says, “Choose one” and the lady opens her trash bag
for me and I look in and I had never seen so many stuffed animals together at one time outside of
a Toys R Us. After seeing this 8th Wonder of the World and deciding on a beautiful pig that I
named Mr. Piggy, I forgot almost entirely about their fight until last year when I realized that they
were just having a normal conversation in Chinese. Chinese is just an abnormally loud language.
However, on a subconscious level I remembered this moment because I realized that if you yell
at someone, you’ll get what you want and this was my philosophy and way of life during my
entire childhood. If I wasn't already hell for my parents before, I was after that. Then my twin
sisters were born and put up a better performance than me and took all my stuffed animals.