People in the village are eschewing the local Chinese restaurant. (I’ve never cared for that word eschew, which has nothing to do with chewing — it’s from mid-14th century Old French eschiver, to shun, to avoid.)
But I digress, as the cliché goes — now there’s a word that itself has become a cliché, and sticking the acute accent on the ‘e’ doesn’t help, in fact it gives the word a snobbish élite look — ah-ha, there’s another word I don’t like: élite, acute accent and all.
Speaking of clichés, an old friend and English professor by the name of E.R. Baxter III, who read some of my stories warned me to Beware the dreaded cliché! I do try to avoid clichés — and to a large extent adjectives and similes and other “defective ammunition,” as Hemingway called them — but the insidious bastards do creep in when my guard is down.
You could say I avoid clichés like the plague and try not to be vague but rather clear as a bell but time will tell and the clock is ticking but I’m still kicking and playing nice and paying the price and pay as you go and take it slow and take it or leave it and down the hatch and I’ve met my match and no pain no gain and down the drain and up the creek and full of pique and void of hope at the end of my rope on my last legs and down and out and drunk as a skunk and in a blue funk and down on my knees and who moved the cheese and up to my neck a total wreck and don’t delay seize the day and grab a bite go fly a kite and string her along but do her no wrong and don’t mess the dress I must confess and skirt the truth and don’t waste your youth you’ll soon be old when all is told full of woes and so it goes…
But again, I digress. Where was I? Oh, yes, the local Chinese restaurant. I’ve been getting take-out there for three years and it’s always been crowded — because the food is excellent — but now I go in and it’s practically empty, often just me and another guy. If this keeps up, there will be an OUT OF BUSINESS sign in the window.
Sad. Put the blame on covid, or more precisely the public’s fuckwit fear of the Chinese connection. I’m doing what I can to keep them in business, but after all, there’s a limit to how much wonton soup and pork fried rice one guy can eat. Time will tell, as they saying goes.