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RAB MCNEIL: Beware the Chinese takeaway from hell

Rab's Chinese takeaway came back to haunt him. Again, and again.
Rab's Chinese takeaway came back to haunt him. Again, and again.

Here comes the tale of the Chinese takeaway. Pour yourself a large breakfast sherry, readers. You’re going to need it.

I was away for a long weekend in heap big city, first time off the island in five months, and I was drooling for a Chinese.

Imagine my delight when I found no fewer than four on a 50-yard stretch just a 15-minute walk from my hotel.

They looked scuzzy, and I wondered how they did business next to a dual carriageway.

I’m a daring smuggler

But I guess most orders these days are for delivery. I phoned mine in for collection.

Now, I’m a daring fellow, and one particularly risky thing I do is smuggle takeaways into hotel rooms.

I’m unsure of the rules here. Some say it’s allowed, but I like to think it’s forbidden. It should be, with people like me on the premises.

I put in a large order for one: soup, ribs, chow mein, chips (Chinese chips are best; scandalous for a chip-based nation like ours, but there it is).

Everything went well … until it didn’t. I collected, smuggled, ate, though little of it, probably a third. I just wanted to sample it all.

Things started to go bad

Problem was I’d no cutlery. Usually, a great joy of smuggled Chinese in a hotel is eating it with the teaspoon provided for beverages.

But, this time, there was no such thing, just some wooden stirring sticks, shaped like narrow files. My first course was like eating soup with chopsticks. Difficult.

I’ve trouble enough with proper cutlery. I’m a spiller. I get food everywhere.

A detail to add was that I was sitting up on my bed. The only chair provided was uncomfortable, and my ad hoc arrangement made it easier to watch Netflix (Big Bang Theory) on my laptop. I have to watch something while eating.

Then they got worse

Alas, by the time I was done I’d spilled Chinese liquids on my pillow, sheet, duvet cover, and the daft decorational thing atop that.

I tried cleaning them using the soap dispenser in the bathroom. Some of it went well. Most not.

I’d to put the heating on in the already roasting room, draping the textiles over the radiator to dry. I also left the bag containing the takeaway detritus by the window to disperse the smell. That left a stain on the windowsill.

Obviously, you take it as read that I’d also acquired stains on my shirt and trousers. Nor did I leave out the carpet.

Then things got even worse

Next morning, I double-bagged the deadly takeaway remains and shoved them into my wee backpack to smuggle them out. There, they leaked into the bag and onto my mobile phone and laptop.

As I tried cleaning these, I got it on my hands and then onto the car’s gear stick.

This takeaway from hell was ruining my life, coating it in Chinese goo.

Eventually, I wrestled it out of the car and found a litter bin, into whose narrow entry I managed to stuff it after pushing and pushing, one leg sticking up in the air, much to the amusement of passers-by.

But, at last, I was rid of the fiendish beast. Let that be a lesson, readers. Don’t smuggle Chinese takeaways into your hotel room. It’s the road to a messy disaster.

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