There will be blood. And Kung Po Chicken.

Picture the scene, if you will. Or don't, I'm not going to get all Hitler on you if you choose not to.

But if you do, picture the scene of two young (*cough*) lovers walking arm in arm down a street in the nicer end of Brooklyn, both hankering for a chinese meal on their final day together before parting again.

During their slow stroll past cars holding fourteen people, cars 'customised' by someone colourblind and with a love of Bauhaus, and women wheeling pushchairs holding obese babies counterbalanced with two KFC bargain buckets hanging off the handles, our young lovers rejected the first chinese restaurant they passed for 'serving fish'.

Because our young lovers take all their decisions together. Apparently.

The second, and most definitely only other, chinese restaurant they passed was packed - and with a huge crowd of people waiting to be seated. Undeterred, our dashing male lead walks straight to the counter and asks in his poshest English accent if despite not having a reservation, whether they 'could seat my good lady and I'?

Table for two? Right this way - take your pick of 3 tables.

Um....what? The young couple chose a booth. Then looked back at the packed waiting area glaring at them and realised why. One was a big group that were waiting for a table to be free. The other two couples were too fat to sit in a booth.

Not just fat. Orca fat. Own-orbiting-satellites fat.

Our dashing lead half expected Captain Ahab to come crashing though the front window at any moment to claim his prize - the great white whale.

After they'd ordered, the next table that became free was given to one of these couples. The wife especially was gross, and took up the whole of one side of a table (they had to remove one of the chairs as there wasn't room for her and it) while hilariously one of the waters subtly tested the chair in the waiting room to see if it was broken.

All was fine until the soup arrived, along with three middle-aged women who weren't obese - just that very fat weeble-with-legs look. These three women knew Ms. Blowhole as they'd all lived near each other in a place full of refineries called 'Staaten Oiland' about 20 years ago.

Five looooong minutes of screeched conversation a foot away from our heroes ensued after which a waiter finally pleaded with them to sit down.

In the booth behind the young couple.

The beautiful young lady leaned forward and whispered, "Great, now we get to hear about their entire lives."

"Surely not," our English lead replied, "now they've sat down they ought to shut up."

They did.

For five minutes. Then they did what any sane and conscientious people would do and continued their conversation with Ms. Blowhole at full volume - right across the young couple's table. And what a doozy of a conversation it was:

"Do you remember that house we lived in, back on Staaten Oiland?"
"The one down the street from the one we lived in, back on Staaten Oiland?"
"Yes, that one, back on Staaten Oiland. Well we moved after the neighbour extended his decking past our steps."
"No!" *gasp*
"Yes! We told him, the boundary is up to our front door. Not our steps. It's not how we do things on Staaten Oiland."
"No, on Staaten Oiland we treat people with respect. Do you remember those shops round the corner?"
"Round the corner from the house we had back on Staaten Oiland?"
"Yes, those shops - just down from the house we had on Staaten Oiland. Well they've been refurbished and opened up as shops."
"No!" *gasp taking in almost all the oxygen in the room*
"Yes! As shops, but different ones to when you lived on Staaten Oiland."

For. Twenty. Minutes.

Our young couple had been incapable of hearing each other over this torrent of facts vital to world security and had resorted to shouting at each other. At one point when Ms. Blowhole had stopped long enough to swallow an egg roll whole, our dashing hero commented that talking over other people was a tad 'fucking rude'.

They shut up again for five minutes while Ms. Blowhole inhaled a small lamb and spat out the bones.

"AMANDA! Do you remember Amanda? She lived down the street from that house we lived in, back on Staaten Oiland."

Exit one young couple halfway through the meal. The Staaten Oiland Fat Club* had driven them from their food.





*The first rule of Staaten Oiland Fat Club is 'No fucking lettuce.'**
**The second rule of Staaten Oiland Fat Club is 'No FUCKING lettuce, capiche?'