I love sushi.

Like a race track, a movie theater, or the lottery, a sushi bar is a place of possibility. The unpredictability of the sushi conveyor belt, the impossibility of knowing what will pass your seat next, seem to promise even the most unlikely. At any moment, you could aim for a dish of sashimi but grab a pair of arctic clam sushis by mistake, and find that you like them much more. A particularly flustered waiter could bring you a hand roll you never ordered and end up catching your fancy.You could discover that the mayonnaise-laced prawns look quite revolting up close and be caught in the act of sneaking them back onto the conveyor belt. While ordering you could be told that the restaurant had run out of salmon, only to watch several plates of it parade past your table just as you are about to leave. 

In truth, there was much we did not forsee that Friday, even before we began ordering sushis and sashimi. I did not expect to find Ann wearing mismatched slippers as she proudly showed me her spotless living room. Karen did not expect to walk up several flights of stairs before realizing that she could not find the right door because she was in the wrong building. And who would have thought that as several batches of cranberry oatmeal cookies shriveled in the oven, we would be too distracted by Scrabble troubles to notice?  

When spending time with family and friends, you often come to expect the ordinary. Because these are the people you love most, they are also the people you often find most predictable. Daddy will always do something absentminded, like wear a bib out of the dentist's office or try to force his way into a restaurant that has already closed. Mommy and Emily will never agree on which clothes are fit to wear, but will always manage to reach some sort of compromise. Ann, Karen, and Christine will never mention rabbits without adding some sort of derogatory comment involving "unwashed" and "disgusting." 

The patterns you observe become, in your mind, established facts, and you become grow certain that things could never happen any other way. You learn to anticipate their reactions and take precautions. (ex: Baby Rabbit should mentioned minimally in conversation.) And yet, somehow, even when all patterns have seemingly been noted and mapped out, the unexpected happens. Mommy and Emily actually decide on a dress for Emily's junior prom together. Daddy sits through a doctor's appointment with me without once asking me a question about personal hygiene or the last time I washed my hair. My friends overcome their phobia of rabbits and kidnap mine, only to return her to me, several hours of frantic questioning later, in a sealed sandwich bag. 

One of the things that surprised me most this Friday was the discovery that there are people who care what I write in my blog. Who leave comments so I can experience the thrill of getting feedback. Who read my posts and remember enough to discuss them over miso soup and sushi, if only to debate whether my latest story is about a cockroach, or if watermelon really can be eaten from the bottom up. 

The second installment

Like cleaning windows for a living or eating fettuccine with a spoon, being a full-time coward was no easy feat. He could no longer remember when he first realized that was what he was, but the signs had always been there, and he had been bound to catch on eventually. Who but a coward could not admit to his mother that he had been the one who unearthed her potatoes fifteen years ago to make potato stamps for his print collection? (She still suspected the postman.) And who but a coward would pretend not to notice when Mrs. Boggs from Building C dropped her quarters into the last washing machine, even though he had gotten there first?

    

Unearthed potatoes and washing machines aside, he believed he handled it well. As well as any disability, and the frustration and isolation that came with it, could be handled. In his mind, his cowardice was a disability because, much like a missing toe or hearing impediment, it made life unfairly difficult. There were too many things to avoid, too many people to hide from, too many reasons to stay crouched behind his umbrella stand.While others took buses to new towns and auditioned for parts in plays, he could not even bring himself to try buy a new brand of deodorant. He went through each day at the supermarket surrounded by reminders of his uselessness and yet constantly gave himself new reasons to despise himself, collecting vague insecurities like a lint roller until had no stickiness left and could only retreat to books of valiant knights, desperate to avoid further contact with a world that had become too much.

Pathetic. Breakfast was not even over yet, and already he had begun to feel sorry for himself. Shifting his arm to cram the last of his cucumber sandwich into his mouth, he glanced at his watch. 7:14. Eleven minutes before everyone who worked at Sam's Market gathered behind the gardening section, before Brenda began roll call and announce the Sample of the Week. Sixteen minutes before he was marked for his 55th late slip. It took about ten minutes to bike from the apartment to the supermarket-if Ms. Kendricks left No. 201 in the next six minutes, he could beat the elevator downstairs and still have a chance. 

  

Or he could just tell her about the slippers.   

It occurred to him that Ms. Kendricks might not even care. Perhaps she had not even noticed. They might laugh at his mistake, make a few jokes about his carelessness, and then chat for a while about the comforts of casual footwear. All would be well then, and he would be able eat breakfast at his dining table again, blissfully unaware of whether his neighbors had left their houses yet.

But still he remained in the dirt and bread crumbs, stooped between the wall and shoe cabinet. 

Thank you = Wingardium Leviosa

While there is little in common between a Shakespearean drama and a supermarket (then again, writing is often about connecting what should not be connected), both manage to capture a vibrant and intriguing cross-section of the human race. Clownish employees, teenage drama queens, a secret colony of little people who know more than they let on-apparently people of all sorts need groceries, and it is amusing to watch those who join parade. 

There are also people who are not endearingly eccentric or quintessential, but merely unbearable. People who shove, snatch, cut lines for food samples, and are inexplicably rude. And though I am bound to encounter at least one such specimen between getting more toilet paper and trying to find cucumbers still wrapped in bubble wrap, I am always taken by surprise when I do. 

I would like to think that what bothered me later as I sifted through the selection of TV dinners was a bout of righteous anger, but there is little to justify such wrath. The man did not wrestle away a bottle of shampoo I was sniffing, insult me for speaking English loudly with my sister, or even ram his shopping cart into the box of bottled water on purpose. He did nothing but maneuver his shopping cart around me as I shuffled over to help him right the box, did nothing but fail to utter two, monosyllabic words of gratitude. And it was this omission that haunted me. His failure to say thank you plagued me so deeply that I continued to rant to Emily for the next forty minutes as we tried to lay out such discourtesy in logical terms. Did he think I was the cleaning lady? Had he been distracted by the new loofahs on display? Was he mute-perhaps his tongue been cut out by pirates? And because I often relish over-analyzing my own actions when others do not act as I expect them to, I then tried to remember if I had grimaced or drooled, if my nose had been dripping or my neckline too low.

It is easy to overlook the little courtesies. Words like "excuse me" and "thank you" have little practical value, and there is no doubt that I am perfectly capable of getting that bag of flour for you whether or not you begin your request with a "could you" or "please." And yet, these words have become part of a ritual that is repeated hundreds of times each day because they serve to assure those around us that nothing is amiss. That the world that they know is still in place, and that the flimsy decrees governing human interaction still stand. Excuse me, I just need to get through to the stairs, don't worry, I am not being chased by a hungry mob of pirates that may trample you all in the next few minutes, or cut out your tongues. Bless you, I am sure your sneeze is just a cold and not some incurable fungal infection that will eventually spread to your liver. Thank you, the box of bottled water has been efficiently rearranged, and we can now go on with our lives. Everything is as it should be.

Of course, it would be melodramatic and absurd to say that I am now unable to go on with my life. And perhaps someone less prone to unnecessary analysis would have simply forgotten the encounter the second it ended. But the exchange that failed to take place in that bottled water aisle today wasted an evening of my life, and that, boys and girls, is why "please and thank you are called the magic words." 

The first installment

Had it not been the slippers, it almost certainly would have been something else.

Even now, as he squatted behind the wooden elephant umbrella stand and candy wrappers that had somehow gathered inside his front door, he smiled at the way things had turned out. Smiled to himself as though this routine of lurking behind the umbrella stand, listening for the footsteps that would leave No. 201 so that he could finally begin his own day, was merely a game he happened to be playing. As though the 54 tardies he had collected since the first Tuesday of March and the discomfort of eating breakfast wedged between a shoe cabinet and the wall were things to be dismissed, even laughed at. As though he were kneeling in dirt and bread crumbs simply because he wanted to.  

In truth, he had been driven to this particular spot behind the umbrella stand by a series of incontrovertible truths. He could not arrive at the supermarket before eight because he could not leave the house until he had heard Mrs. Kendricks, who lived in No. 201, step out into the hallway, water her pea plants, jingle her keys, and lock her door. He could not leave the house until he heard these sounds because he could not chance an encounter with Mrs. Kendricks. And he could not chance an encounter because he could not bring himself to tell her about the slippers. It was all as logical and as inevitable as the progression of a chemical reaction, and he had no choice but to look on. 

Eating watermelon

When eating a slice of watermelon, it is necessary to start from the bottom and work your way up, even if this means gnawing though several inches of tough, tasteless rind. This way, when the white flesh and stringy fibers have been digested, there will be left a single tip of perfectly orchestrated sweetness. The pinnacle of your watermelon experience. With this, all the sour bits, the disappointing bits lose meaning, and you can no longer remember when things were not so sweet, or you were not this content. 

To think what life would be if this phenomenon could apply to all things. A difficult semester, a new job, a rocky romance. What if all the best parts, the worthwhile bits, were saved for the end? What if you could wallow into the mire with the conviction that it was only going to get better from there? Not only do you get your custom-made happy ending, but it becomes something you have earned, something not merely bestowed or stumbled upon by chance, but planned for and now savored.

If only life could be eaten like a watermelon slice.

Father to daughter

When my dad doesn't know what to say to me, he asks about the last time I washed my hair. These episodes tend to occur while we are in an elevator or a waiting area, and are often witnessed by uncomfortable  bystanders. While ignoring him convinces him that the inquiry must be repeated so that those in the shop next door can hear as well, answering my dad only leads to questions more cringeworthy and specific. What do you mean "recently"? Wednesday or Thursday? Did you use the dandruff shampoo last time? Did you scrub clockwise? Did you rinse twice? Maybe you should wash your hair again tonight. Ten years of communication have accomplished little: my dad has yet to learn that the other people waiting for their dentist appointments should not be subject to the details of my shampooing regimen, and I have yet to discover a way to deflect these questions without losing it. 

What infuriates me is not so much my dad's tactlessness or his inability to keep his volume down in public, but rather his persistence in asking the questions I don't want to answer. He seems to relish latching onto subjects I have labelled either taboo or pointless, subjects such as my personal hygiene, and pestering me to discuss them. I do not know what he is trying to find in my answers-knowing when I last rinsed my hair hardly offers a glimpse into matters of the heart. It is of great importance whether I ate toast or porridge for breakfast, but arguments I've had with friends, doubts I've had throughout the day, insecurities I've acquired usually go unmentioned. Of course, by the time it occurs to my dad to ask me about such things, I am probably already fuming about having to repeat the lunch menu for a third time. It is as though, in groping through the dark, we always miss each other.

Yet, for two people who must resort to arguing about how often hair should be washed, we also share a strange collection of habits and mutual understandings. Like my dad, I ask lots of questions during TV shows, spend most of my time satiating a relentless sweet tooth, and have a soft spot for rabbits in green pajamas. We both tend to leave sweaty socks behind the bathroom door, cough in a way that infuriates my mom, and care entirely too much about the way others see us. My dad is a stickler for rules regarding anything from traffic to recycling, and though I hold romantic notions about being a rebel, breaking the rules usually leaves me feeling nauseous.There is an understanding that if I let my dad buy a 珍珠奶茶 on the way home, he'll buy me one too, and that if I cook anything, even charred carrot bits, he must praise it. 
Though I sometimes forget it, I am my father's daughter, and this somehow makes the searching worthwhile.