#if youre ever in hardeeville head on in to new china

[grimalkinmessor]

I'm pretty sure I accidentally walked into a liminal space today. Confused? So am I :D

Allow me to explain.

I've been craving Chinese for the past week, so I finally looked up a place to get some around where me and the fam are currently staying. I found one with a nice website, four stars, large menu, and open (why are Chinese places never open on Tuesday?) so I put in my order online and went to go pick it up because the Door Dash time was thirty-six minutes and the google maps time was nine minutes.

I got horribly lost after taking a wrong turn and going seventeen miles in the wrong direction, so that didn't really matter because I got there a whole hour after my food was ready, so it didn't really matter in the end but also that's embarrassing so MOVING ON.

I get there, and there's only one other car in the parking lot. A little weird, not too crazy. The door's propped open, so I head on inside and,,, there's only one person in there.

It's a Chinese restaurant that advertises a buffet and while it's not exactly a big place, it was weird for the only Chinese place in the area open on a Tuesday to be completely empty at 6pm.

But it gets weirder.

There were hoards live bugs on every single window, even the ones away from the door. The bugs weren't moving at all except for the occasional wing flutter. There's a whole back wall full of stacked, broken gumball machines with nothing in them. And when I say a whole wall I mean there were like forty of them all stacked up to the ceiling. The tables were clean but looked like they'd been shoved out of place, and the buffet bars near the kitchen were completely empty. There were a couple broken plastic-porcelain bowls in a few of the tubs, but that was it.

I'm enjoying the decor (because I'm a lil freak that likes creepy buildings) and the woman at the counter asks what I'm doing there, even though I'm clearly the only person they're waiting on. I tell her I ordered online and I pay for my food. ...And the receipt she hands me back has my deadname on it. I put my current name in online when I ordered, and I paid in person so she couldn't have gotten it from my card info, so I have no idea how THAT happened but moving on.

She goes into the back to get my food, and she calls something out in Chinese to the person I assume is in the kitchen, though I never heard them answer her. She disappears into the back, and a few moments go by with little buzzing and cooking sounds in the background—before I hear a loud crashing noise. I look up, and the woman from before comes out with a smile on her face, completely unphased, and gives me my food. I don't ask her what the noise was, because my momma taught me to keep my nose outta people's business, so I take my food, thank her, and leave.

I get back to the park fine (with far less trouble than I got to the restaurant but I digress) and open up my food. The rice is delicious, no complaints there at all, but then I open up my lo mein and it's,,,made of spaghetti noodles.

It still tasted great, the texture was a little weird ngl, but ultimately I got my Chinese food AND I got to visit a station of purgatory so, win win :3

#liminal #im obsessed w liminal spaces actually so that was a five star experience for me #personal shit #yes im aware that the lack of people probably means theyre just not doing well #its a buffet restaurant during a pandemic im not dumb #but also #that does not explain the various other weird shit #anyway #if youre ever in hardeeville head on in to new china #they could probably use the business and its good food #and if they dont you get to visit a glitch in the matrix