“Takeout” is a short story written by Erin Witt about the son of a German restaurant owner who loves the daughter of a Chinese restaurant’s owner. However, the two restaurants are in competition and a complicated love story is created. Witt brings up the message of loving your family versus your friends. When the Chinese restaurant closes, the German owner’s son attempts to redirect the public to the Chinese restaurant in order to keep seeing his girlfriend. The story ended up being hilarious with a deep message within.

    Witt brings up the message of loving your family versus your friends. When the German boy’s father discovers that he has been driving customers away from their restaurant, he says that his son was “ ‘betraying my entire German bloodline before the eyes of God” and punishes him. And at the end, the German boy discovers that he had hurt his friend as well because his girlfriend had considered the new customers as pity from their competitors. In other words, the story ends with the German boy getting anger from his family and his friend. This type of lose-lose situation is what I loved most about this story. This theme and the great use of symbolism ( such as “ the dim street light shone creating a yellow halo on the empty street around me “)makes this story wonderful. I would like to thank Witt for creating this wonderful story with this wonderful plot of family against friends.