Jesus Christ! Pt. II

Last week we did a good deed and were rewarded with a free dinner of our choosing. The afternoon was getting on, the horizon paling salmon and orange... I was enjoying the Cowboys defeat on the tele, Cathleen was pulling clothes from a box rummaged in the garage. I was voting on each shirt, boo or somebody's gotta like that, get rid of it and occasionally, oh, very nice. We went through a few boxes and then hit the drawers. Despite the twenty shirts Cathleen tried on... oh, and the thirty hanging in the closet, and handful in drawers, she made mention of being short on shirts. This is an outline for future discourse on the subtle differences between women and non-metro-men.

Anyway, we got hungry and thought to cash in the karma ticket at this sushi place we've never tried. I thought it also sounded good cos I was feeling thirsty for sake and this place in particular has the bottomless option and is known throughout the neighborhood for its strange staff and owner who push exorbitant amounts of rice wine on the meek clientele. Well, so it goes... we walk down and the streets and shops are slow or closed cos it's Sunday and people are chilling in their homes and on patios. We find our joint and have a seat up by the chef and commence with an honorary, hands-behind-the-back sipping of our sake from square wooden receptacles (a sake ritual for first-timers apparently). The food is good, we order in waves and I'm really digging on the salmon cuts, but meanwhile every time our squares get lower they're filled again. The deal is, if you don't flip the fucking thing over they will be very pushy to refill it, no matter what level it's at. So we get trashed, unconditionally. Near the end, I'm starting to fight it a little bit and the lady of the house tells me she doesn't speak english, Only the Japanese as she fills my square for the umpteenth time against my wishes. I've always been part of the clean plate club... I just want to put that out there... in other words, this is a potentially disastrous situation for me. Somehow I manage to finish that portion too and quickly, I mean quickly, flip over my square. Cathleen does the same and we're having a good laugh at that cos we're having a nice evening, and the social lubricant has abounded. That's when the owner comes over, a slender smiley grayhaired man and he comes straight over to me and flips my square right side up, and refills the fucker. My reaction time is pretty slow at this point. The lady of the house is telling us a story about people not being able to find the door. Jesus christ!

We thank everyone and sign up our bill and head for the door. There's like eight people eating and eight people serving. The staff is shouting goodbye and we're doing the same. Just as we're getting a few paces from the place, the lady of the house comes running outside with a big smile and shouts after us, Can you walk straight? and all I can think to shout back is, You are such a bad influence! We stumble home in a drunken fashion discussing the restaurant approach of getting your customers shithoused and what that does for repeat business, and/or will they remember how the food tasted. It's called Coach Sushi cos the old grayhaired man use to be a baseball player, and then a baseball coach back in Japan. Now he's the coach of this restaurant, the supercute blondhaired hostess tells us, and I'll get in trouble if he sees me not keeping these full of sake. She has a wry smile as she says this, she knows where this is going. These people are crazy...