The Chinese Buffet Bloody Toe Incident (long).

Where to begin? It was one of those days where everything was going wrong. I was late coming home and my wife and I were taking our kids to have their pictures taken. My two year old daughter wouldn’t sit still, then began to cry and scream. We decided to reschedule and left. We thought going out to eat might help relax everyone, so we went to my 4 year old son’s favorite place, the local chinese buffet.

When we got to our booth, the waiter neglected to get a high chair for my daughter, so my wife walked over to get one herself. The wooden chairs were stacked three high, and she struggled to pull the top high chair free. When she did, the other two fell over and hit her foot. I heard her moan, and asked her what happened. “The chair fell on my foot” she said. I assumed that she had just banged up her toe a little bit. As she hobbled over to the booth, I looked out and saw that her toes were covered in blood, and that one of her toenails had completely ripped off!

She sat down, and I asked if she was ok. She said she would be fine, that she just needed to clean it up. I thought we should leave, but she insisted that it really wasn’t as bad as it looked. One of the waiters was kind enough to bring her out a bag of ice. He looked back and said “Is that your toenail?” My wife said that it was, and he went straight over and picked it up! I thought I was going to get sick.

So…My wife is propped up in the booth with ice on her foot, and I am getting food for her and the kids. My daughter then drops her styrofoam cup which bursts open and spills all over the place. My son is talking like we are riding on a roller coaster or something, everyone in the place could hear his every word. When I finally sit down to eat my own food, sweet and sour sauce sprays all over my shirt as I cut into my piece of chicken.

Now my wife’s foot is starting to hurt. I tell her that we can go whenever she is ready. She tells me to get some ice cream for the kids, then we will leave. This is when things start to go crazy.

As I am up at the buffet, I see one of the waiters, and who appears to be the manager, walk over to my wife. I figure they are just checking to see if she is ok. Then I hear her muffle a scream! I look over, and the manager is on his knees reaching between my wifes legs! It looked like a gynocological exam. Of course, the whole time they are speaking in Chinese, and we can’t understand a word of what is being said. I am starting to get pretty ticked at this point.

Apparently she tried to hand him the bag of ice and it fell in her lap. He then started to reach between her legs to clean it up, which greatly startled my wife. By this time, eveyone in the place is staring at us. I walk back over, and the manager is still on his knees. He pulls out this mysterious little bottle of liquid, and before we know it, he is pouring this stuff on my wifes bloody toe. She is wincing in pain, and this guy starts blowing on her foot like he is attempting to blow out the Great Chicago Fire. He just won’t stop blowing! We went from gyno. exam to birth training in a matter of seconds.

Now my wife’s crotch is soaking cold, her toe has the chinese mystery liquid on it, manager man is blowing his lungs out, and my kids start imitating him–blowing as hard as they can and as fast as they can. I am standing there wondering if I am in a dream, and praying that this is some sort of practical joke. I thought for sure I was on The Jamie Kennedy Experiment.

My only thought was that these guys are trying to avoid some sort of law suit at all costs. That idea was shot down when the other waiter came over about 4 minutes later with the bill! I was shocked. I didn’t mind paying for our food, but it seemed completely out of line with everything else they did.

Turns out my wife can’t walk on the thing for at least three days, and the doctors have no idea what the chinese mystery liquid was. The best part of the whole night was when the emergency room doctor asked us if he could call his wife to tell her our unbelieveable story.

In the end, I was stuck with the food bill, some medical bills, and of course General Tsao came back for his own type of revenge later that evening!

…What the… Flying… Fuck?

That’s just so…

I mean…

They…

WHY?

So, what did your fortune cookie say?

[Homer]

mmm … Chinese mystery liquid … argleargleargle

[/Homer]

i was somewhat waiting for the part where the manager, with the aid of chopsticks, would push on the pressure points of your wife’s toe, so it wouldn’t hurt so much.
Sorry to hear that happened…hope she’s going to recover fast.

Oh no. That sounds horrible. I hope your wife feels better soon.
That part about him picking the toenail up makes me shudder.
I guess your son will have to find a new favorite restaurant huh?

Hmmm…

I guess it beats the time I saw the decapitated head of a pig at the counter of a chinese restaurant…

Thanks for the good thoughts for my wife. The Vicadin is helping. I think her medicine is working too.

Oh god…I shouldn’t have opened this thread
covers her mouth and runs for the bathroom…I think it was the part about PICKING up the broken off toenail that got me…sorry…urp…
MetalMaven

Wow, how awful! Sounds like it’s time to go back to the owner and have a little heart-to-heart about how restaurants in the U.S. handle customer injuries. Which is NOT to treat them with mysterious Chinese liquids! (Although who knows, maybe it helped! <g>)

Give your wife my sympathy – knocked-off toenails HURT!!

No, that would be the Chinese mystery liquid finally kicking in. :wink:

Hope she feels better soon.

My favorite part:

I have a theory as to the identity of the mystery liquid: Pak Fah Yeow, or “white flower oil”. It’s a mentholated cure-all embrocation, which is particularly effective on insect bites, aches, period pains, headaches, cuts, and, seemingly, for heart attacks (a colleague of mine in Hong Kong collapsed, and was immediately rubbed with this while I decided that an ambulance might be a good idea). I never go travelling without a bottle of the stuff.

From the description, I think the guys were being really sweet in their own way.

Hope your wife’s feeling better now!

“pak fah yeow” is transparent right? it’s my guess the Mystery Liquid is purplish red.

Thanks. I thought they were trying really hard too, that’s why I have no hard feelings about the whole thing. The Chinese Mystery Liquid is transparent, so maybe this Pak Fah Yeow stuff is the right call. Thanks again jjimm, and everyone else for your thoughts.

(by the way, this Mr. Mom role is starting to get to me. I guess my wife pulls more than her fair share of the wieght around here!)

Well, of course they’d pick it up. It’s the key ingredient in Thousand Year Old Ripped Off Toenail Soup.

Jesus H. Christ in a bunny suit playing the tuba.

Y’know, this story would be funnier if it wasn’t probably true…