Tomato Sauce and Ketchup.

I'm a whore for McDonald's french fries. Like, the day that they offer free refills of fries, like how they have for the soft drinks, I'll cry in happiness and blog about it. Its the only thing that I'll eat with ketchup since I'm serial chilli sauce dipper. This habit of mine has sparked questions over the years as here, in wonderful Malaysia, the chilli sauce is far more popular as we love our chillies. (That sounded kinda corny, true?)

"Why are you eating those with tomato sauce? Can't stand the heat? Har Har Har,"

"OMG, Hanis, you took the wrong sauce!"

"Is there something wrong with your tastebuds?"

And on. And oh yes, ketchup is more commonly known as tomato sauce here. Unless you go to fast food restaurants and they'll refer to it as ketchup. Well, not since forever but the past few years. I have no idea why. So, yes, there are people here who don't know that ketchup = tomato sauce. It sounds similiar to kicap which is Malay for soy sauce. Can you guess some of the confusion?

Which brings on to this ranting bitch of a story that happened to me few years back. I was at the nearby McDonald's during lunch hour. So, this cashier, a girl around the age of 17-18 (I just realised every problem I have with this place will have a girl that age as the root of my problem) took my order (take-away/ to go) and as usual, while putting the goods in that paper bag, they'll ask you what condiments you want.

"Do you want chilli or ketchup?"

That day's purchase were my lil bro and Mama's lunch and also some fries for me. So, knowing them, I know I'll only have to ask for ketchup because Mama prefer using the bottled chilli sauce at home.

"Ketchup please,"

And oh wait, this whole convo went in Malay. But she used the word ketchup instead of tomato sos which you can guess means tomato sauce. She suddenly had this thought/ perception in her head that I'm some kind of dumb ass girl with limited English vocabulary.

"Ketchup tu bukan kicap tau, tomato sos,"

Which translated to :

"Ketchup is not soy sauce, its tomato sauce,"

Dear wonderful readers, please imagine how insulted I was. I was cursing her in my head. And my face was so pissed off looking that I snapped to her in English:

"Why thank you but I've known what ketchup is for years now,"

God. Her pronounciation wasn't even right. It so sounded like kicap.

And that was one of the few incidents where I felt like smacking a cashier at McDonald's. Wanna hear more? Tell me! I'll gladly tell you later.

I'll post the other incidents when I get the craving for some McDonald's fries again.

Peace Out.