Attack of the Knife-Wielding Sushi Boy

My wife and daughter claim that I'm prone to exaggeration. Me? I don't buy it. Not for one minute.

Take for example the dark, dark incident that henceforth shall be known as "The Attack of the Knife-Wielding Sushi Boy." 

You know, memory can be a funny thing. It's strange how my daughter remembers the "incident" quite a bit differently than I do. I suppose it's her mind's way of protecting her from such vividly nightmarish occurrences.

And it's all true!!! As my mind is my witness.

There I was, visiting my daughter in her small lil' town when we decided to get sushi. However, her town's so small, I doubt the inhabitants have ever heard of sushi, let alone run a sushi joint.

So we had to travel about 35 minutes away to yet another small town (although this one big enough to have a very good sushi joint; we'd eaten there before) to satiate our sushi cravings.

The parking lot seemed uncustomarily full. Uh-oh #1. The waitress looked around the packed restaurant and said, "It'll be about an hour until a table opens up."

Hopes dropped. Hunger pangs rose. As did blood pressure.

Sensing our sushi hopelessness, the waitress suggested we could sit at the sushi bar. 

Now, I've sat a sushi bars before, but none as cramped and awkward as this one. It wasn't a bar, but a tiny ledge, barely enough room to put a plate on while people happily chowed down at tables right at our back. And we sat so low, I could look up into the sushi chef's nostrils, mere inches away. Trying to talk to my daughter played havoc with my neck, cricking every time I attempted to turn to speak with her. And we couldn't even hear each other over the raucous chowing and chatting and coughing (Uh-oh #2!). We'd found Sushi Hell. Or...it had found us.

But, being the good-natured, good sport that I am, we decided to make the best of our awful situation. 

Naturally, things crashed downhill after that. 25 minutes of waiting and we still hadn't seen a menu or waitress. I noticed a table in the corner opening up. So I raced back to the front desk and waited for the "friendly (or at least, that's how I perceived him at the time)" bus boy to come talk to me.

"We're sitting over at the sushi bar," I gestured to the claustrophobic corner, "and just wanted to know if we could move to that table." Mind you, I said this in my best manners, displaying magnanimous kindness in doing so given the circumstances.

The friendly-in-disguise-only boy glances at the table, and says, "Sure! Let me just go get it cleaned up!"

Things were looking up for us! Or so I thought. But the dark clouds just kept rolling in.

After another twenty minutes of watching our table not get cleaned up, a clearly bored waitress comes up and says, "You ready to order? Or WHAT?"

I said, "Thank you so much for your gracious offer, but we're waiting on that table over there. Have a nice day!" Under my breath (because good manners count, after all), I added, "And we still haven't seen a menu."

Unbothered by our suffering and grumbling stomachs, she walks off, slower than a one-legged turtle.

Then I hear the bell jingle above the door. Two women enter the restaurant. The friendly-posing boy races over (Oh...I see...he RACES toward them, but took his sweet time leaving me hanging at the front desk for minutes!) and chats with them, giving them excited nods. Then he looks at OUR table. He looks at us. The women look at their fingernails.

The boy--visibly getting more crazed in appearance by the second--rushes back to OUR table and finally cleans it. He looks our way, shooting daggers, then looks back toward the indifferent women with love in his eyes.

I stand up. Ready to race the women to OUR table if necessary. The sushi boy narrows his eyes at me. 

Ennio Morricone music plays over the speaker. The Sushi Kid looks back at the women, smiles. SMILES! Looks back in our direction and glowers.

I take one step toward our table. Then another. 

My daughter remains seated. Possibly worried that I'm about to get attacked.

She was right.

Finally, downright menacing sushi boy sprints toward me. Holding a long sushi knife!

He said, "I forgot about the reservation at that table."

Things got a bit blurry then until we got back to my daughter's car. Shock is a funny thing.

"Man," I said, shaking my head, "I can't BELIEVE how that guy attacked me! Did you see the knife in his hand?"

My daughter said, "You mean the super nice boy with the huge smile who apologized profusely?"

"What? That's not what happened at all! He was downright mean, arrogant, and one step away from gutting me!"

"You mean when he continued to apologize and you stormed out of the restaurant yelling, 'That's uncool! That's UNCOOL, MAN! THANKS A LOT! THANKS A LOT FOR NOTHING!!!!'"

"Clearly, daughter, you're delusional. That's NOT what happened at all! He attacked me vocally first, then physically! And...and...he wasn't a boy at all. He was this HUGE, scary guy with two knives in his hands and murder-lust in his eyes!"

"Hmmm. I must've missed that when I was apologizing for your hissy-fit. Whatever, Dad."

Sigh. Maybe my daughter's defense mechanisms are making her even more delusional than I thought.

But hope springs eternal. No, we never did get sushi that day. But we're going to try and go there again in a couple weeks for my daughter's birthday. But just in case, the guy wants to go round two with me, I'm going to wear a baseball hat, a fake handlebar mustache and sideburns, and speak in a funny German accent.

While I've got delusional people on my mind, there's more than a few running around in my horror suspense thriller, Godland. But, hey, that's what makes it fun! (Hmmm. Maybe I should redefine my sense of "fun.")