Alley Babble

A rear-view taken at 6:01 pm yesterday of two businesses on the south side of the 1300 block Kingsway: to the left, Phoung Uyen Video & Coin Laundry, and to the right, Cheo Leo, which specializes in Cafe, Banh Mi and Sinh To (a fruit shake).

Years ago, when Kim Chau was mysteriously closed for the day, I went across the street to Cheo Leo for my banh mi ga, which the counterperson tried to give me for free and, because I refused to be taken for a cop, left on the counter.

"How do you know they're not just being nice?" said a regular at the old Cedar Cottage Cafe (now a hole in the ground next to Kim Chau), where I complained about my treatment. 

"That's just it -- they're not just being nice; they're scared, too. They're scared of me, and I find that upsetting; being seen as an agent of fear, people behaving nicely because they're afraid of what they think I represent. I find that a kind of living hell."

"Well, you know what Baudelaire has to say about fear disguised as friendliness."

"No, what?"

"I'm asking you! You're always going on about the guy. I thought he'd having something to say about it."

Proportions

I'd been reading about this guy. Part of the invasive species invasion. Like those tropical fish people "set free" in urban lakes that eat everything except themselves.

The way things are going, we'll end up with one fish, one plant, one insect and one bird, which may well be a bat, with none of us around to argue that a bat is a mammal.

While I was looking at the sign a mom sidled up with her six-year-old. "See," she said to her son, pointing to the sign. "If you see one, tell me," and then she smiled at me, and the boy seemed confused. 

"Are you scared of this creature?" I asked the boy, and the boy trusted me enough to whisper yes, he was.

Still smiling, the mother nodded for me to continue.

"Well, don't be too scared," I added, "because the real beetle -- the real beetle is only half that size."