Angela Tung Oversharing on the internet since 2005.

I admit: the first mistake was mine.

Like an idiot, I left off the street address. A week later I finally checked the status of my package and saw it was Oakland. What the fuck?!

I saw that I could Change Delivery Options online and I tried. God knows I tried. Learn More, the pop-up window said. I clicked Learn More. Sign Up, the next window said. I signed up. I clicked Change Delivery Options again. Learn More! the pop-up window said. For God’s sake, I learned more already. Fine: Sign Up! For Christ’s sake I signed up already.

Already a member? Yes! Track a package? Sigh, yes sure. Change Delivery Options. Click – AGAIN. Learn More! Are you fucking kidding me? Sign Up! Track Your Package! Change Delivery Options! Learn More! Sign Up!

I am not exaggerating. An infinite loop of fucked-up-ness.

Finally, I called. Got a real person. She said that it was in Oakland and being held in Oakland, but that the sender would have to change the address. I called Zappos (for I would only go to so much trouble for new shoes). The very kind woman at Zappos said now the package was being held in South San Francisco. South San Francisco is not the same as Oakland. She also could not Change Delivery Options. She gave up much more quickly than I did and called UPS. I gave her the correct address. She gave UPS the correct address. The next day TWO UPS people called me to confirm this address. I said it to them; they said yes that was it.

The package did not go to that address.

By the end of today, I still hadn’t received said package. I checked the status: left at front door. What?! I called. It had gone to some other address, an address (at least in the same town) that perhaps another Angela Tung lived at because surely in the Bay Area there is just one Angela Tung.

Luckily for me these kind people, having received my package for the second time, held it for me, and now I have it.

No thanks to you, UPS.

And you know what? I don’t even like the fucking shoes.

I didn’t want to listen to the Radiolab “Yellow Rain” podcast.

People were upset about. I saw this story from Hyphen magazine being tweeted a lot. I didn’t read the story. I knew that if I read the story and listened to the podcast, I was going to get upset too.

I was right.

I listened with an open mind. I usually like public radio shows, and wanted to walk away thinking, People are being defensive. The show starts out innocently and interestingly enough. Basically, it’s about the controversy around Yellow Rain, a supposed chemical weapon that was dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War and caused death and destruction among the Hmong people. President Reagan claimed the Yellow Rain was developed by the Soviet Union.

A Harvard scientist has claimed that the yellow droppings were nothing but bee poop.

Then how do you explain all the death? Coincidence. People were dying from dysentery and other diseases at the same time these bees pooped.

Nothing but bee poop! Can you believe it?

And then the scientist laughed.

Right after all the description about what the Hmong people went through, they presented this theory about the bee poop, and the scientist laughed.

Dear Radio Lab, do you know what tone is? It’s if I’m telling a heartbreaking story, I don’t suddenly start joking and laughing about fucking bee poop.

The truly upsetting part of the show was when the hosts basically ambush their guests, Hmong refugee Eng Yang and his niece, award-winning author and activist, Kao Kalia Yang. They had gone in thinking they would have a chance to tell their story, but instead they got grilled about whether or not the Yellow Rain was truly a chemical weapon. Yang gives an impassioned response and says that the interview was over. There’s silence, and then the host saying, “But it wasn’t. They kept talking.”

Those annoying people just kept yakking!

I can easily imagine another story. You start with the idea, “Yellow Rain is only bee poop,” but then there’s this other, more important story: the Hmong people. One of the hosts, Robert Krulwich, went on about how “the woman” didn’t care that President Reagan accused the Soviet Union of using chemical weapons.

If I had to choose between caring about the death of my people or a pissing contest between two governments, I’ll pick the death of my people.

The story could have been, “Yes, Yellow Rain may not have been poison. The Cold War might have been started over bee poop, but does any of that matter? What about the Hmong?” That would have been an interesting, well-rounded story.

So there was Jenny An’s article about how she won’t date Asian men (or so she says) because she’s racist. As I said earlier, while I didn’t think An’s article was genius and I found her follow-up “Just kidding!” extremely lame, I didn’t really have a problem with the piece. At least she’s aware of her issues. Now there’s a new article at xoJane entitled “I am an Asian Woman and I Think Asian Boyfriends Are Superior (Well, Mine Is Anyway).”

Here we go again.

This new piece seems to have little self-awareness and is full of contradictions. For instance, in her second paragraph, the author writes:

According to the 2010 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Asian men make the most money –- making $901 in median weekly earnings. Hard-working, humble, unwavering loyal to the family? Sounds like a recipe for success. Why the hell would you say no to that?

Then in the VERY NEXT PARAGRAPH, she says:

I was sick of the conservative attitudes that seemingly plagued my predominantly Asian community in southern California. Everyone seemed to be set on being a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or getting placed in some prestigious business school. Seriously, my parents literally cried when they learned I gave up a scholarship for pharmacy school to pursue journalism as a career.

So an upside to Asian men is that they make more money, but the author hates the “conservative attitudes” that pressure Asians into becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc., ie. money-makers? She goes on:

I was hesitant to date someone of my own race — and not to mention that Asian men in my community seemed boring and had a tendency to be socially awkward.

But then I dated one — and have never looked back. He’s the epitome of an Asian man stereotype and proud: pre-med, good at math, Ivy League hopeful, obedient towards parents, grade-centric and not much of a partier.

At first I didn’t want to Asian guys because of one stereotype, not I want to date them because of another stereotype! And again, while the author hates feeling pressure HERSELF to become a pharmacist or whatever, it’s super-awesome that her boyfriend wants to be a doctor and fits all the stereotypes she herself hates??? While she rebels against her parents, she wants a boyfriend who’s “obedient toward parents”? Huh, what?

Next the author breaks down the reasons why dating an Asian guy is awesome:

• he’s good at math
• he’s a hard worker
• he’ll be rich
• he’s loyal (“divorce still carries a huge stigma in the Asian culture”)
• “He’s not an arrogant douchebag”
• “He bombards me with gifts and food”
• “He keeps me fit.”

Okay. These are not bad things. They sound like great things. But then she substantiates each with the claim that these are inherently Asian qualities.

BULL-FUCKING-SHIT.

I’ve known plenty arrogant douchebags who were Asian. I’ve known people who are not Asian who were, guess what, good at math, hard-working, loyal, and fit.

And what’s with the focus on material stuff? Again, it seems the author wants to be able to rebel and be a low-paying journalist AND have boyfriend who is a rich professional who will give her lots of prezzies? And how is divorce still having a huge stigma in Asian culture a good thing? To me, it meant an extra year of a miserable marriage.

This article pissed me off a million times more than the An article (which actually didn’t piss me off at all), and it’s not because I think Asian guys are the worst or something. I’m a race doesn’t matter kind of gal. But to equate these positive qualities with being Asian, and to not even be aware that the qualities the author despises for herself are the VERY ONES SHE THINKS ARE AWESOME IN A BOYFRIEND is what drives me up the fucking wall.

While I’ve never worked in the food service industry, I feel like I know a thing or two about good customer service. Years ago I worked for a nonprofit healthcare education company for whom customer service was a huge deal. We held these conferences where we bent over backwards to make speakers and participants happy. This meant anticipating needs. It meant saying, “Let me find out” instead of “How should I know?” and “Let me see what I can do” instead of “No, I can’t help you with your stupid high-maintenance request.” It meant saving our bitching for “off the floor.” Sure, this was a pain in the ass sometimes, but with nice people, it was a pleasure.

Our waiter over the weekend didn’t do any of these things.

I guess he wasn’t so much a waiter as a bartender since we were sitting at the bar of one of our favorite restaurants. Let me first say that the service, when we’re at a table, is very good. It’s usually okay at the bar, except for one bartender who got my order wrong, then blamed it on me. And secondly, the bar offers full service.

At first I thought our guy was okay. “I’ll be with you guys in a minute,” he told us, which I love. You can keep me waiting, as long you acknowledge my existence. Because we had been to this place so many times, we knew exactly what we wanted. So when he asked me, “What can I get you?” I said, “The corned beef hash.”

He stared me. “You’re going to drink that?” he said.

“What?”

“I said, you’re doing to drink that corned beef hash?”

“Oh.” I blushed. “Water then.”

At first, I was terribly embarrassed. I guessed I didn’t hear “properly” over the din that he hadn’t asked what we were going to eat but if he could get us anything to drink (though the MB claims that the guy did ask, “What can I get you?” not “What can I get you to drink?”). But then I started to get pissed off. So what if I had heard incorrectly? Adjust, dude, and more importantly, don’t be sarcastic and embarrass me. Yeah, I guess I’m an idiot because I didn’t hear you over the din of the restaurant. Sorry I didn’t follow your “rules” for how to order.

It didn’t end there. He started bitching to the couple sitting next to us about some other customers. Yup, bitching about customers to customers. He went on and on about what a pain in the ass the woman was, how she kept asking him instead of her waiter for stuff, how she got in the way. True, all of those things sound annoying, but you don’t complain about it to other customers. Hell, when I got my hair cut, my stylist very tentatively asked the receptionist about some weirdo who had come in – “Who was that?” with a careful glance at me. But since I feel like my stylist and I are pretty friendly, I didn’t mind that, and in fact I had noticed the weird guy too.

“He was just excited about his appointment,” the receptionist said diplomatically.

See, obnoxious waiter/bartender guy? That’s the way to do it.

Anyway, I thought MB hadn’t noticed the guy’s behavior, but he had. “I left him a 90 cent tip,” he said, on a $30 bill.

That’s what you get for being a dick: ninety fucking cents.