A fish tale/head

My language helper recently told me about a fish place near me. One thing I miss from home no matter where I've moved is the easy access to seafood in the style that I'm accustomed to in the islands. So I stopped by on the way home one day and was delighted to get a kilo of fried fish WITH the fish heads (my FAVORITE part of the fish)! Aside from Israel, I've never had the pleasure of being served fish with the head intact save, for in my own country. So I was overjoyed to receive fish with heads for the equivalent of about $5 which ended up lasting several days. With a garlic-yogurt sauce I make it is so good and reminds me a hint of fried fish days/nights back home with my family.

So tonight when I thought of delighting my tastebuds I called up the restaurant and asked to have 1/2 a kilo of fried fish delivered. My mouth was already watering at the thought of eating the tail, working my way down the body and then gobbling up the head of each fish (I like to save the best for last) as I prepared the yogurt sauce. When the delivery guy arrived I was all too happy to quickly pay him and chow down while watching an episode of Bones! I didn't even bother looking in the container I just stuck my fork in, shoved a few pieces on my plate and went on my merry way.

After eating 2 of the little yummers, it hit me that I wasn't having much fun. I had twice eaten fish and having worked my way down the body discovered that I was done. I looked at my plate and was surprised to find that non of the fish still had its head. I trotted off to the kitchen in search of better, head-intact fish. To my utter horror NONE of the fish had heads!

I can't remember if I wailed on the inside or out loud but I was devastated! Where were my fish heads? I had been anticipating savoring them. Why would they give me fish with heads the first time and deprive me of my fish-eating joy the second? What had I done for someone to want to tease me like so? What kind of cruel person would play a joke of this nature on me? I'm a simple girl with simple pleasures and I consider myself fairly easily amused and just as easy to please. All I wanted was to watch an episode of Bones and devour fried fish heads, intact, with garlic yogurt. Was that too much to ask? Was I being demanding or ungrateful? I decided to call the restaurant and inquire about the fish heads since I didn't want to make this mistake twice.

The guy who answered spoke little English and I explained that I was the foreigner who had called in an order for fried fish. He switched me over to an English speaker who happened to be the same person who delivered the fish. I repeated what I told the first guy and said that I got the fish and that they were lovely but they had no heads. He asked in English, quite surprised what to my ears was a very ridiculous question. He wanted to know if I wanted the heads. I replied, "Yes. very much. That's the best part!. He then told me that most people don't want the heads and it was his fault that when I called he didn't ask but assumed I didn't either. I said in the local language that the head was my favorite part of the fish. He replied that since I like the head so much as he continued making fried fish he would save them and bring the heads to me later.

Sooo....an hour or so later, I was presented with a 1/2 kilo of fried fish heads free of charge!