Conversations: #01

I once had the misfortune of knowing a man. This was in first-year uni at my university hall. He was the type of annoying person who wanted to flaunt wealth at any opportunity. Although, he didn't really have that much to flaunt—just talked a lot about how rich his family was and how horrible and poor he thought all of us were. He also believed that kitchen microwaves would give your food, and therefore yourself, cancer. One day, when we were alone in the common area, he asked me how many tiers I have on my birthday cakes. This question took a moment for me to process. "How many" he had asked. Not whether it had tiers. Simply a question of quantity.

For the past several years, I had worked weekends at a cafe. In the summers, when it got busy, I worked there full-time. Since my birthday was in the summer, I often worked on my birthdays. From memory, I hadn't had a birthday cake in years—even before I started working at the cafe. I didn't really see the point. To be honest, I never even threw myself parties. I relayed this information to him, and he nodded sagely, considering the revelation that some salt-of-the-earth common folk like myself didn't even celebrate their birthdays.

Thinking the conversation was over, I made to get up and leave. But he suddenly started talking about his own birthdays—apparently, for as long as he could remember, his cakes had always had three tiers; however, since he was getting older, he wondered if he should start making his family get five-tier cakes instead. He asked me what I thought of this. Fragments of what he had just said were rattling around in my head as I tried to make sense of it. Make his family get a five-tier cake? Why five? How many people does he have at his parties? Also, his family organises them? It reminded me of a friend talking about Asian weddings. I can't remember the specific region where this happens, but apparently it's common for the family, particularly the parents, to invite a lot of random acquaintances to weddings as a way to show off. I wondered if that was what he and his family did, invite vague acquaintances to… I guess make it look like he knew lots of people? Water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink, I guess.

I looked down at him, not sure what to say. I couldn't tell if this was just another way for him to gloat about his own five-tier cake–affording riches, or if he was just stupid and didn't know how to read a room. I said something vague, and I left.