The Bowl's Italian Kitchen by Aiden

The Bowl's Italian Kitchen
    Hello, this is Aiden Bernhardt. If by some chance you have stumbled upon this blog without prior acquaintance of its writer, or you have so far neglected to read more than the first few words of every post, then you will be delighted to learn that Hollie is currently the mother of two Brazilian monkeys and a teenage boy (me). While in all appearances, the two monkeys very closely resemble human children, I assure you that their existence would be against the law. If those two monkeys were to somehow transform into human children, then sadly, our membership at the swimming pool across the street would no longer be valid. At the Spartan Club where said pool resides, the formula for a packaged family discount only has three ingredients: one mother, one father, one child. Thus the existence of our species-diverse family.
    I should mention that monkeys seem to exhibit a certain fondness for cheap Canadian pizza bought at high-end cafeterias. Thankfully, there is such a shop located in our beloved watering hole, Metro City, AKA The bowl. On our most recent expedition, we got lucky and spotted the rare human being prowling amongst the foliage and… err I mean we learned that the guys running the Italian Kitchen restaurant were extremely pleasant Canadians who had gone out of their way to make life hard for themselves by moving their startup business to China. Currently they are still in the process of convincing the locals that Pizza and Italian pasta (with cheese) are real foods that you can eat. The owner of the shop named Stu, sat and ate lunch with us while we traded experiences. We learned a lot from Stu, to say the least. Bear with me now as I will attempt to summarize what we learned in three words of no particular order: Soapy, Punches, Money. There, I said it. In case you are too ignorant to understand the depth of what I have just said, here is a more in-depth description of each word:
    Soapy: On our last visit to China, We stayed very near where our current home is, and we ate lunch at the bowl nearly every day. When however my mother realized that the bowl is possibly the filthiest place you could ever order food, we stopped going for lunch. This time when we returned to China, we visited the bowl hesitantly only to discover that the place was a lot cleaner. For instance, my mother noticed that our plates and bowls were now regularly handed to us already cleaned via the magical process of soap and hot water, (something they never used to do, clean the dishes for god’s sake) Stu explained to us that this was all thanks to him. When he and his brother started up business in the empty shop near the elevator three months ago, they revolutionized the entire place by cleaning their dishes. Soon all the other shops regretfully had to rise to this new standard. Upon looking around we noticed there was even soap in the mop buckets, what a concept.
    Punches: Stu told us briefly about an incident in which he lightly pushed a mall guard on the shoulder and promptly “Killed him”. He and his brother’s girl friend were shopping at the mall near closing time when they discovered that all the doors had been closed. Their only way out was to pass by a guard with a napoleon complex. He told them that “His” exit was not supposed to be used. They tried exiting anyway, and the guard got right in Stu’s face and told him that he was going to kill his girlfriend next time he saw them. Stu pushed the guard a little (it was documented with a security camera). The guard was apparently a fan of soccer because he keeled over clutching his knee and screaming in pain. The police showed up and dragged Stu away to jail. After examining the evidence, the police let him off, but told him not to be so strong in the future, and that it was ok to spit in his face and tell him you were going to kill him, but never ever was it ok to touch someone else.
    Money: One of the most enlightening things Stu enlightened to us was the existence of a strict social caste system based on money. Similar to the one used in India, except tucked away, the caste system in China allows the richest of its members to mostly do whatever the hell they want without retribution. That is, as long as they have contacts in high places, and they have lots of money (obviously). Stu said that the difficulty level for setting up a business in China is turned all the way up to Expert. By coming in to the country afresh, you have no contacts to help you cut through the complicated bureaucracy, and therefore no chance what so ever. The only way they got their business running in the first place was by reaching through a long grape vine of people to the owner of the Bowl, who in one night gave them their shop front in the bowl after nine months of failed leads. It wasn’t exactly the style of restaurant they had been searching all that time for, but they settled. Thanks to them, we can buy pizza for the monkeys whenever they become restless. Well that’s all for now from me.
    Tune in next week, maybe. -Aiden