OK, so this is technically my story.

My family moved down to Maryland from New Jersey back in the summer of 1994. It was my senior year of high school. I've always loved Asian cuisine and lucky for me there was a Chinese restaurant in Rockville, MD. The problem was that we lived in Kemp Mill, a suburb of Silver Spring, and Rockville isn't exactly walking distance. The only retail stores in our neighborhood were located in Kemp Mill Shopping Center and the only kosher food avaialble at the time was Schmell and Azman's bagel shop. While the number of kosher-keeping Jewish families in Silver Spring has exploded in the last quarter century, there were still plenty of us living here that could have easily supported some kind of fleishig (meat) restaurant -and especially one right in the heart of the most densely populated Jewish neighborhoods in the DC metro area.

But alas, it was not meant to be.

Then one day it dawned upon me. There was a Chinese takeout place in that shopping center just a few doors down from the bagel place. The only problem? It wasn't kosher. As soon as I came to that realization I wasted no time and rode my bike over to the store. It was called "Chin and Lee". I walked through the door and approached the counter. I asked the owner if he'd ever thought about selling his business or going kosher. He said he wasn't interested and that was the end of it.

Until the next time I approached him again a year later.

And then again the year after that.
And the year after that.
And the year after that.

OK, so maybe I didn't go back every year. I mean, I did take a few years off studying abroad, going to college, getting married and having kids. But I definitely approached the owner on a number of different occasions. I actually missed an opportunity while living in downtown DC because he sold the business to someone else back in 2001.

Fast forward to the summer of 2017.

On July 12th at exactly 6:51 PM I get a Facebook notification telling me that someone had tagged me in a post.

This was the post.	And this was the outcome.
		Note: I'm really not that short. The picture was taken at a weird angle.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Actually, there's a lot more to this story. And I mean a WHOLE LOT MORE. But it's late and I'm pretty sure no one is going to ever read this anyway so maybe when I have the time I'll finish it off in my memoirs.

Until then...