Oregon Trail Part 4 - Slow Tea from China

I suppose everything is running late today. I stop by a grocery store and break an unspoken rule of mine (buying a west coast beer on my way there) because it came highly recommended.

I try and book it to Minneapolis/St Paul but don't make it before closing time of the first of two tea stores I wanted to visit. I head to the second. I am trying to become a more patient person. The wait on my tea is Kafka-esque. Or like something out of Sartre. I would know better if I were more well-read, but in the time it has taken, I could've read a short story by each. The tea evidently required no preparation, as I make it myself, so they must have the slowest hot water kettle in the world.

I place my food order and I fear it has been lost entirely. I book a hotel room, realizing that I may be here a while. I think everyone else is more upset than I am. I should've left, but I order more tea instead. I am told that the happy hour pricing is no longer valid because it is no longer happy hour. I reflect that I have been here for over an hour, and I am not happy. Further, I reflect that I placed my food order during happy hour and would not be ordering this at all if I had received my food within the hour.

In for a penny, in for a pound. If everyone leaves in disgust, there's no way the kitchen can stay backed up.

The tea I get was all right, but it's gone now. As is my water, which came in a tiny cup because they were out of big ones. I splashed it on myself because it got cold at my outside seat. I may go refill it in the bathroom, for which there is mercifully no line.

I reflect that I could've driven to a grocery store, bought ingredients and Sterno cans, unpacked my cookware, and cooked for myself in the parking lot in less time than this has taken. Forget the Slow Food movement!

Unfortunately, most of their to-go selection is not in until Tuesday. I reflect that my food may not arrive until Tuesday, given that it's been over an hour since I ordered already.

I am told that this tea operation is mostly an online retail presence. By comparison, this restaurant aspect would be a 28.8k dial-up connection over long distance where someone keeps picking up the extension in the next room. And once it loads, it's an animated "Under Construction" GIF.

Five points out of five for concept and looking great on paper. Negative seven points for execution. I leave after waiting 2.5 hours. Not quite enough to watch a Peter Jackson movie (at least not a director's cut), but close.

On an unrelated note, I discovered an entire town in Minnesota which smells like poop. I wonder if inhabitants get used to it, do they eventually believe their shit doesn't stink? Is there any market for bathroom fans? Could they install pine-tree-shaped cardboard air fresheners the size of actual pine trees? I didn't stick around long enough to ask.