Tai and the shrimp and sauce

My first job was at a Japanese Restaurant in North Carolina.They served dishes such as Teryaki Chicken and Hibachi steak.  The food was really good but the secret to it's success was the yum yum sauce.  For those of you not lucky enough to know, yum yum sauce or shrimp sauce as we called it; is a light pink mayonnaise based sauce that is usually served at Japanese restaurants in the southern US. It was so good in fact, that it makes it difficult for me to eat fried rice anywhere else. Working there was great; a mile from the house, free food, closed at a decent hour, and they cursed in their native tongue so whenever they yelled at you, it didn't seem so bad. (the cooks seemed to enjoy it though)

Tai was one of my bosses.  She is from Vietnam.  Everyone in North Carolina thought I was her grand daughter though I don't look even remotely Vietnamese. Tai wasn't very fluent in English but her expressions were enough.

Tai had a way with animals.  She had a pet chicken that she brought to work with her.  It couldn't stay inside so she tied it to a blade of grass out by the dumpster.

When her pet Oscar fish died, she ate him.

One night when we were especially busy, we ran out of shrimp sauce.  To serve our entrees without it would cause a riot.

Tai went to the cooler where we stored the sauce.  Unfortunately, before we separate it into single servings, the sauce is kept in 100 gallon bins.  Seeing as we were all busy, Tai decided not to ask for assistance getting the bin out of the cooler.  She had pushed the sauce all the way to the end of the cooler until she had reached the ramp.  Tai, not being the kind of person that lets stupid ramps get in her way came to the conclusion that she could get the 100 gallon bin out by herself.  As she began to work the bin down the ramp, the weight of the bin became too much for Tai and the sauce slipped from her grip.

The shrimp sauce fell to the ground with a giant thud and it's oily contents poured all over the floor. The kitchen staff and I heard Tai's cries and we went to see if she was okay.  The entire back of the restaurant was now flooded with the sauce. It was impossible to stand, resulting in Benny Hill like antics.

Just because there was shrimp sauce on the floor and all over us, didn't mean that the customers went away.  We had to continue serving the customers as well as help Tai clean up the mess.

She learned two new English words that day: help, please