Omak vignettes.

I.
I’m in the back seat of my Mom’s car. She’s driving and my sister, Kate, is in the passenger seat. We’re stopped at the one and only stoplight in town, when we hear a loud BANG! behind us. A scary looking dude is punching a girl in the face through her driver’s-side window. The light changes. We drive through the intersection, and the girl follows behind us. Scary dude is running alongside her car, screaming and punching as he goes. She speeds up and leaves him behind, before finally pulling over. We drive back around the block and cut through a parking lot to see if she’s ok. Another car slams into us. The driver is on her phone talking to 911 because she saw a man running through an intersection, punching a girl in the face…

II.
It’s a Monday. I’m at the bank. I need a money order to pay for a travel visa. “Who should I make it out to?” the bank clerk asks me.

“The Embassy of Vietnam,” I reply.

“How do you spell Embassy?”

“E-M-B-A-S-S-Y.”

“How do you spell Vietnam?”

“V-I-E-T...”

It’s a Tuesday. I’m at the bank. I need a money order to pay for a travel visa. “Who should I make it out to?” a different bank clerk asks me.

“The Chinese Embassy,” I reply.

“How do you spell Chinese?”

Really? Are you kidding me? “C-H-I-N-E-S-E.”

“Umm…how do you spell Embassy?”

III.

On our way to Walmart, Kate and I see a billboard for wine tasting. In an effort to take our redneck quotient down a notch, we decide to go. We’re the only ones there, which is great because the winemaker spends his entire morning drinking and chatting with us. When he hears that Kate loves her some Malbec, he takes us into the barrel room to taste the one he’s currently working on. He then invites us back tomorrow for some gypsy jazz music. Gypsy jazz and wine? Omak just got a lot more interesting. To be continued…