Written by Dune Dills

We open on a food court in the mall. There are tables, chairs, and several food stalls surrounding the place. We focus on a Chinese food stall.

Tahani opens the shop, her shirt and apron perfectly ironed, even her paper hat doesn’t have a wrinkle.

The door opens and Chidi walks in at 9am sharp, smiling.

Chidi: Gooooood morning, boss!

Tahani: Good morning, Chidi.

Chidi begins prepping for the day. A half hour later Eleanor walks in with a sour expression, her hair ruffled.

Tahani: You’re late, Eleanor. Chidi took the liberty of finishing all the prep work by himself, which is a job I assigned to both of you.

Eleanor looks at Chidi.

Eleanor: Oh thanks, man, you’re the best.

She punches him in the shoulder and puts on her hat.

Chidi: So…no apology?

Eleanor laughs.

Eleanor: You’re funny, that’s why sometimes I don’t hate you.

Chidi: You’re late every single day! I’m always doing your work!

Eleanor: You know how you can fix that? Why don’t YOU also come late, then you’re not stuck doing my work.

Chidi makes a “w” with his mouth, his eyes wide.

Chidi: W-whaat?! I can’t belieeve you would say that. Don’t you have any concept of work ethic?

Eleanor rolls her eyes.

Eleanor: Give it a rest, Chidi, Tahani’s never on my case, and Jason’s not even here yet!

A crash emanates from the kitchen.

Jason: I’m up! I’m up! I’m good!

The three of them rush into the kitchen. Jason is sitting on the floor, holding a steel pot in his hands.

Chidi: When did YOU get here?

Jason laughs.

Jason: When was I NOT here, man?

Chidi: Did you SLEEP here?

Jason: Yep, and I guess what, technically, I was the first one here. I was earlier than all you guys.

Eleanor laughs and high-fives Jason.

Tahani glares at Jason with her hand on her hip.

Tahani: Jason, darling, we’ve talked about this. You CANNOT sleep in the kitchen anymore. If the inspector makes a surprise visit and finds you here, we’ll be shut down, and my reputation as a prestigious restaurant owner will be tainted.

Eleanor: I hate to break it to you Tahani but this place is NOT prestigious. It’s a Chinese restaurant in the food court.

Tahani laughs gently, looking down at Eleanor.

Tahani: Nonsense, Eleanor, perhaps you don’t see the underlying artistry I see in this place. It’s the best of all the restaurants here, we’ve got terrific food, a lovely staff and the most customers of any other shop, trust me, I keep track. It’s a good place, no, it’s the BEST place in the mall.

Eleanor: It’s definitely not a good place. We only have the most customers because you give away free fortune cookies with coupons for free meals at this place. It’s like you’re just desperate for customers without regard to actually making money. I’d say it’s pretty bad, medium at best.

Tahani: Don’t be ridiculous Eleanor, our food is of the highest quality and anyone would pay for it. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t the absolute best. Now, I’ve got to go do some networking but you three get to work! Chop chop!

She spins on her heel and waltzes away.

Eleanor: Networking? For what?

Chidi: Making connections in the restaurant business, it’s a good idea.

Eleanor: THIS ISN’T A REAL RESTAURANT!

Another crash emanates from the kitchen.

Jason: Guys! The rice is [crash] almost ready!

Chidi: We should help him.

Eleanor: I’ll help him, you serve clients.

Chidi moves to the front counter and Eleanor goes to the kitchen, where Jason is trying to stack pieces of rice one on top of the other in a tower, but it isn’t working.

Eleanor: Alright, what specials are we making today?

Jason is fixated on his rice tower.

Eleanor: I’ll just make fried rice. We don’t have ingredients for anything else. JANET! How do we make fried rice?

A black box in the corner lights up, with Siri’s voice emanating from it.

Janet: Locating recipes for fried rice. First, heat up three tablespoons of canola oil.

Jason: Woowoo! I’ll heat up the oil!

Jason adds the oil to the wok and turns up the heat way too high. His shirt catches on fire. He begins laughing hysterically.

Jason: Eleanoooor! I’m the burning maaaaaan!

There are crashes as pots fall, oil and rice flying everywhere. Eleanor puts out the fire and sees all the rice on the floor.

Eleanor: Fork. Jason, help me clean this up.

They scoop up the fried rice and put in into a tub. Eleanor brings it to the front where Chidi is.

Eleanor: Special’s ready.

Chidi: Plain fried rice? That’s it?

Eleanor scoffs.

Eleanor: Do you want to put it on the menu or not?

Chidi: Well, I mean it’s not that easy, Eleanor. On the one hand, lunch service starts soon and we have nothing else for a special, Tahani would kill me if we didn’t have a special, and inventory day isn’t until tomorrow so we need to be sparing with the ingredients we use today, and as her assistant manager I need to support her vision for the restaurant, but on the other hand it looks awful and is that a toy car in there? Who made that?

Eleanor: CHIDI! Just leave it! We need a special.

Lunch begins. Tahani returns for lunch service to supervise. Customers are continuously sending back the rice and complaining about it.

Chidi: I knew that rice looked off. I should have gone with my gut.

Eleanor: Which side of it? Your gut is the most conflicted person I know.

Tahani: I don’t understand why people don’t like it. We’re always the best place, I’ve built my reputation on it. Janet!

The black box lights up.

Tahani: Read the client statistics from this week.

Janet: Your clientele has gone down 6% in the past week.

Tahani: Oh WHY is this happening to me?! It must be my fault, I need to do more networking, more marketing, perhaps more fortune cookies, oh perhaps the hats aren’t proper, and definitely the rice needs improvement. This is supposed to be the good place in the mall, the BEST place!

Tahani puts her head in her hands.

Eleanor: I know what to do.

Eleanor finds a huge bottle of MSG and pours half of it into the tub of fried rice. Then she adds an entire bottle of sweet soy sauce.

Chidi: Ew, you can’t put that much in there. That stuff is so bad for you, you’ll give all our clients diabetes!

Eleanor: Maybe, but it’s not gonna kill you. And guess what? Now it tastes goooood.

She takes a big bite and chews it obnoxiously in his face, then does a bad victory dance all the way into the kitchen.

Michael the demon approaches the counter and returns his empty plate.

Michael: Can I just say, this rice is fantastic. I just discovered this thing called a SELFIE, how cool is this?! Let’s take a selfie!

He snaps a selfie with the crew, with Tahani posing elegantly, Chidi smiling, Eleanor rolling her eyes, and Jason looking at the ceiling and giggling.

Michael: Wow, this is just so great. Okay bye now, take it greasy! Haha! See what I did there?! I’ve ALWAYS wanted to say that.

He leaves, chuckling to himself and waving to random people.

Eleanor: That’s right! Arizona girl saves the day! Woowoo! You guys owe me one, I’m out for the day. Peace!

She leaves, over an hour before closing. Jason has fallen asleep in the kitchen again. The customers have stopped returning the rice and appear to be enjoying it.

Tahani: Well, another successful day! Look how happy the clients are. I never should have doubted myself, I always have happy clients! Oh, I knew this was a good place.

Tahani and Chidi stay until closing, then they both leave together, forgetting about Jason, who is curled up in one of the cupboards.

Jason wakes up in the middle of the night and falls out of the cupboard, yawning. He starts talking to himself.

Jason: What time is it?

The blue light from the black box fills the dark kitchen as Janet lights up. Jason can’t take his eyes off it.

Janet: It is 1:15 am.

Jason: WOAH! What’s your name?

Janet: My name is Janet. How may I help you today?

Jason: What’s the capital of Florida?

Janet: Tallahassee.

Jason: Who’s the greatest DJ of all time?

We hear Jason asking Janet questions all night in the kitchen, as the scene ends.