"Certified By The State!"

Witnessed a funny thing at one of the local fast-food restaurant chains here in Hawai'i today. Me and my folks were getting some lunch at Zippy's when I noticed a caucasian guy in khaki shorts and an aloha shirt carrying a Chihuahua, walk by our table. As he was waiting to pay for his meal another man, a bald aPHro american, passed our table apparently talking very loud and in the caucasian man's direction. It didn't really register, what he was saying, but his tone and the volume of his voice made me and a few others pay attention. He walked up to the man with the chihuahua as he seemed to mention something about his dog. Next I realized he was telling this chihuahua owner, "You're not suppose to bring your dog in here!", slamming his check onto the counter. The haole (aka. caucasian, white man, tourist) man quickly pulled out his wallet and at the same time was shouting back to the guy, who was just a foot away from him, "Certified by the state!!", flashing some kind of document from his wallet, like he was a cop. The popolo (aka. black, african american, tourist) man continued to complain, "You need to keep your dog outside of the restaurant! You're not suppose to bring that dog in here!" We had just gotten our food. My mom - oxtail soup, my dad - saimin, and me - 2 piece chicken and chili rice, damn. We were ready to enjoy this. Double damn. And then this started to go down, in the restaurant, in front of all these locals, IN ZIPPY's.

You may be wondering, well what's wrong with that? People complain all the time right? If you can picture the scenario - A local restaurant full of fairly passive local hawai'i folks, you know, having a day after christmas lunch break and all of a sudden two middle-age men, who obviously aren't local, start arguing over whether a tiny chihuahua (who the haole guy had cradled in his arms) should be in a restaurant or not. THAT is just damn bizarre. And to top it off, this haole guy apparently had a certificate stating that his little buddy could be with him in establishments like this. I don't know about you, but when was the last time you met a chihuahua that was a seeing-eye dog or some kind of 'special companion' (purse dogs don't count) that their owner has to whip out his special doggie credentials just to prove it? Let alone argue about it in front of the poor innocent local hawai'i folks.

Oh the humanity...

- ian

btw- the chicken and chili w/ rice was "broke da mouth" (aka. onolicious, da grinds, da bomb, you know - brok da mout) shoots.