Thai food runs rampant in Hailey, Idaho.
This is not a problem.
I'm a recent convert to Thai food, having - no exaggeration - spent my seventeenth year of life ordering the Chicken & Broccoli Combination Platter with White Rice instead of Fried Rice every other day. It got to where I'd be paying with stacks of quarters and dimes. But I was obsessed. I had somehow not experienced takeout Chinese food until I was that far along on my journey and it was love at first mouthful.
That said, I've recently been dragged kicking and screaming into the world of other Asian takeout and- after some serious consideration by my tongue and intestinal tract - have become a fan. I'm still seeing Chinese food seriously and am fully committed, but am now open to the possibility that vehicles for my growth and development as an individual are not solely limited to eggrolls.
I'll admit this development has a lot to do with the facts that, a. reading the Thai food menu out loud is a hoot and b. there exists a dish called Pad See Ew, which- in addition to being fun to say out loud also bears a remarkable resemblance to my beloved Chicken & Broccoli. Only exception being: instead of rice you are served fat blobbly* slabs of noodle which are delectable and melt in one's mouth (if one is able to overcome the initial urge to smash them all over one's face).
So. One shop down from the Liberty Theatre here in Hailey is a Thai Restaurant called A Taste of Thai. It's green.
I remember this restaurant from my last Idaho experience because Leslie, our choreographer, strode in one day after dinner break in one of her fantastic crushed velvet track suits (I believe this one was amber colored) waving a bag of takeout.
"Who wants this? This has pineapple in it and I DON'T EAT PINEAPPLE."
Never one to turn down free food, I accepted it gleefully and spent a good long time later that evening staring into the takeout box trying to decide if I wanted to be unfaithful in my relationship to Combo Platter #6.
In the end, I held strong, and thusly cost myself four years of Thai food enjoyment. But- I knew about this restaurant. So, two days ago, on dinner break, I whisk over in the lightly falling snow. I am the only patron. Everything is green. I am beckoned by a tiny crooked pinkie to the back of the restaurant to place my order. I take a seat to wait. Two employees pass me, giggling loudly. "Hello," one of them says. "How are you?" I smile and reply that I am well. He places a hand on my shoulder, smiles hugely and replies, "That is FANTASTIC! This is the best day IN. THE WORLD!" They giggle away. Awesome. This town is great.
My food is ready near instantaneously and it's delicious. Which-
Inspires me to order more Thai food last night even though my roommate has whipped up a tantalizing pot of goulash.**
I wasn't hungry at the time of initial goulash completion, so I call in some delivery.
The phone call goes as expected, a kind gentleman takes my order and then asks me to please hold for the delivery driver. I am sliding around on the hardwood in my socks and thinking about the Olympics when a loud, gruff, and deep voice sounds in my ear. "Hi. I speak English."
"Okay," I say. I start to launch into detailed instructions on how to arrive at my house and am cut off.
"Yeah, yeah, I know exactly where that is- be ready! I might have to call you to come out and change my tire HAHAHAHAHAHA."
Hmm.
He continues. "What's your phone number just in case?"
I provide my digits. I hear a large intake of air.
"804. What's that area code? That's....Seattle. Right?"
"No sir, that's Richmond, VA."
"VA, huh? Where in VA?"
Sigh. I repeat myself. Then-
"Well, I know ALL about Virginia. I was there for college. What are you doing here?"
Having met nothing but kind and lovely people here, I feel fully comfortable telling him I'm here with Company of Fools doing a show, but barely get the sentence out when-
"Oh, you know, that's great. Just great. As a matter of fact, I have done FOURTEEN MUSICALS. Fourteen pieces of musical theater. And some of them in Richmond. Lots of people think I'm homosexual because I enjoy doing theater but I just tell them- you know what I tell them? I tell them that it's like sports. I've played every sport there is- baseball. I've played baseball. But it's just like theater. You learn to work together as a team."
.....
Though my stomach is slowly eating itself, I reply enthusiastically, "Well, what's your name? I may know you if you've worked in Richmond."
A pause.
"No. I'll tell you when I get there."
The line goes dead.
I walk slowly into the parlor and sit down next to Taylor. I tell him about the phone call. He immediately exits upstairs to make a phone call.
I unlock the front door for David and Aly, who are due to arrive over for an evening of board games at any moment. I return to my seat in the parlor.
Fourteen minutes later, I'm watching "Family Feud" and goggling at the audacity of the producers at what is allowed to be said on that show nowadays when I hear the front door fly open. I rise, smiling and am mid-nimble leap off the couch to greet my friends when I am taken fully aback by the sight of an elderly Paul Bunyan in my foyer. I hold very still.
The giant grizzled man is stomping his snowy boots on the welcome rug. He steps further into the room and lowers a giant cooler to the floor. He begins to remove his gloves.
O.M.G. I mean, I'm not even wearing a bra.
I'm hoping very hard that the cooler leaking all over the floor is full of my dinner and not moose organs when the large man speaks.
"So the main show I did up here was up the road apiece- not the theater you're at right now- how did you get a job there anyway? I figure you're a professional?" I nod. "Yeah- see, I'm not a professional or anything but I - it's a team, you know? So I did "The Man of la Mancha"- I don't know if you've heard of that--" More nodding. "Yeah, so, I did that show up the road a piece and I played what was really the anchor of the show. I was a prisoner, you see, a prisoner who held the whole thing together. I was the bear, the anchor, the stability of all the prisoners, you see? I don't like to have a lot of lines though. So then, they bring in this blonde gal to play the lead. And I'm thinking, oh, she's blonde, she's going to be a dummy, you know? You know? But, and get this- it turns out that she's the first one to not need her script at all! And she's the lead, so, you know, she has way more lines that anyone else. So, she and I became friends. But it was (insert here: I am starving. Are you ever going to stop talking?) so funny because--
At this point my hand shoots out and snatches the check out of his hand. I am hopeful this will remind him that he is working and might have other deliveries to make. Nope.
I take one step back. Now my right foot is on the carpet and not the hardwood. He is standing rather close to me to deliver this monologue.
"Right, so, it's funny because I was next to her when she had to sing her big big song, you know, and, do you know, I had to turn my face away like this (he shows me) each time she sang that song because this would happen--"
He takes a big step toward me and, raising his right hand, takes the first two fingers and trails them slowly under his eyes and down his cheeks. These are to be tears, I assume.
I step back with my left foot. Is the carpet safer? Probably not.
"Wow," I say. She really was doing her job very well then!"
He looks at me. I look back. We are silent for a moment. I can hear Taylor merrily chatting on the phone upstairs.
Suddenly, in a flurry of movement, Mr. Bunyan snatches up his cooler and strides to the front door, growling back over his shoulder, "Well, maybe I'll come see you all, then."
Slam.
It should be noted that my food was delicious. And that, having heard the tale, David remarked first thing upon witnessing my arrival at rehearsal this afternoon that he was very pleased to see me at rehearsal and not chopped up into bits in a cooler.
*It's a word now.
**Goulash- if you don't know, is noodles and tomatoes and sugar and cheese. And beef. It's beautiful.
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