food for thought AKA the cockroach incident

those of you who follow my words as regularly as i write them know that food is a pretty common theme throughout my journeys. unfortunately my work schedule pushes my dinner time back to too-late-for-most-restaurants and i often find myself trekking across the street to wander through the shelves of 7-11 for a hearty, nutritious, late-night meal to stay up late or go to bed on. so when i decided to switch up my routine a few nights ago, it was a toss-up between food trucks that park street side along the main street after hours, or this dumpling and noodle joint frequented by late night Japanese engineers. i settled for the latter. those of you who've heard my stories, rants, and raves about this far-east country also know that a really good bowl of beef noodles is delicious, but hard to come by. so when i saw potential in this dumpling place i thought i might have found a new joint to add to my rotation of food spots.

when i got home and took the lid off that greasy, brown, beefy broth soup my tummy was a'rumbling. after close inspection of said soup du jours i started to spoon out what i thought might have been a mammal hair of some sort (this being a familiar occurrence 'round these parts). wrong. once i submerged my spoon into the beefy goodness and fished out the whisker it had a tiny but plump baby bug thats most likely of the cockroach sort attached to the end of it. it was at that exact moment that i realized what i thought was a hair was actually a thick bristle of antennae reaching out from the creature's head piece. now here's where most, if not all of you guys, would've tossed that ish aside and once again checked the evenings 7-11 stock. i however, took a long pause, and considered the situation. with my stomach instantly going from rumbling to turning i considered tossing it. then i considered a few things i've realized since being over here... most importantly being the waste of good food. FYI, i am a firm believer of the 10 second rule (if its really delicious, and has not fallen in wretched filthiness, it may be extended to about 30 seconds). the next thought being how often this probably happens not only here, but everywhere around the world. bugs and vermin of all sorts crawl up and down food in even the most fanciest of McDonald's and 'bar and grills' (but definitely not Chipotle...don't ever speak ill of Chipotle). which then leads me to believe i'm kind of lucky to have found the bug, because in reality...i'm sure there are millions of people who never saw the bug. ha!! so, i ended up eating the damn beef noodles after tossing the bug and changing my eating utensil. and they were delicious. thats not the worst thing in the world, right? i mean, the tiny bug was dead, the water, oil and broth soup combo was hot enough to boil away any grossness attached to the filthy street crawler, right? ill admit i was kinda worried about the outcome of my actions following the removal of the bug. thoughts of morphing into a creature resembling that of "The Fly" or the kid from "Metamorphosis" sprouted through my head. however, i've yet to find thick coarse hairs sprouting from my skin and i'm not seeing 64 tiny versions of whatever i'm looking at through my eyes, so i think i'm cool. ill keep you updated if i start eating out of garbage cans and puking on my food before i start to eat it...

so i've been pondering...is it worse to find the disgusting critter, dispose of it along with the food surrounding it, and then finish your meal, or is it worse to never have even seen the bug and huffed it all down unknowingly?

(haha! i feel like that can be a monologue to either the end or the beginning of a Sex and the City episode)

(haha, sorry, no pictures)