Hot sauce

So I'm at the Tex Mex joint and have an interesting problem. I need some hot sauce but I am 12,000 kilometres from home, I speak close to no Vietnamese and the staff less English. My initial forage into hot sauce explanation land goes terribly. I ask for a pen and try to draw a chili pepper. I did not know they looked like 2 lines and a tail. Better idea, I remember slices of red chilies sitting in dishes from time-to-time when I am at lunch. Yah ... let's draw one of those. I make a few concentric circles and try to draw the seeds. That goes well too. I text Trangslator and the return is "tuong ot". By the time that text arrives I am done my meal and ready for the humid-a-walk back to the hotel. I have visions of asking for tuong ot and someone running out of the kitchen and pouring a vat of monkey brains over my table 'cause I've just asked for monkey entrails :).

The check out at the shirt store today was an event in itself. It took about 15 minutes and involved no less than 3 clerks. There were many high-level discussions about who knows what and I had to meticulously sign the visa slip twice. Amidst a huge amount of fanfare and speeches, a fly-over, and a 22-gun salute, I was finally presented with a reward ... a bag of 3 shirts. Let's say the net profit of these shorts for the store was $60 ... the person time involved delivering the check out process and procedure probably cost twice that, for a net profit of -60 USD.