Bless Your Heart of the Week: Sushi Date
Sushi: a seemingly safe date activity. It’s casual. It’s easy. It makes you seem like you're adventurous. If it’s a first date then ordering alone can serve as icebreaking conversation for at least the first 10 minutes of the date. Sashimi vs. the traditional roll… whether or not a California Roll actually counts as proper sushi… how much wasabi can they can stand before they start crying… all sensible topics of conversation. There’s even the potential for physical contact that can come from saying you don’t know how to use chopsticks. A guy “taught” me how to use chopsticks on a first date at a Japanese restaurant once and it was so cute… he got to feel in control and introducing physical contact early on in the date makes physical contact at the end of the date more comfortable for both parties. But then he started referring to himself in and only in the third person in all text message correspondence so unfortunately we didn’t go much further than the chopsticks. It was a great first date though. Now had it actually been Ryan Gosling teaching me how to use chopsticks he could talk in the third person all he wanted. Hearing Ryan Gosling's name over and over again is music to my ears.
ANYWAY... who doesn’t like sushi right? Well… in the spirit of full disclosure, I don’t… but after an entire childhood spent trying to earn my older brother’s approval, approval that was contingent upon me being able to go out for sushi and play video games with him, I can at the very least navigate my way around a sushi menu (avocado roll and a side of edamame please!). I can also play a mean game of Super Mario Bros. on SNES but that’s a different blog all together.
Unfortunately for the gentleman on a sushi date that I passed walking to my favorite coffee shop on the Upper West Side this evening, I’m not the only single and ready to mingle girl in Manhattan with picky sushi tastes. His date for the evening was a gorgeous blonde girl who, unlike me, could not navigate her way around the menu and had enlisted the help of their server. As I passed by she was speaking to the waiter in what was a borderline whine with just a hint of vocal fry, giving a DISSERTATION on all the kinds of sushi she did NOT like: “I don’t like tuna… I don’t really like anything raaaaaw… I'm not a fan of eel… I don’t like…” - you get the idea.
Summer in New York provides the most exquisite people watching by way of restaurant patios. It was all I could do not to stop and pretend to take a phone call so that I could keep eavesdropping. I mean... YOU'RE AT A SUSHI RESTAURANT. I can imagine the waiter doing a lot of nodding and smiling, suggesting things she could possibly order and her turning them down. I didn’t stick around, but I did catch one final glimpse at the poor son of a bitch sitting across the table from her. He didn't seem too bothered by it. All I could think was…
Bless His Heart.
He's so wrapped up in having such a blonde bombshell across the table from him that he has NO IDEA what he's getting himself in to. If she speaks to a server that way just IMAGINE how she'll speak to him when she's cross. Maybe the exterior is all he cares about, and in that case they deserve each other, but seriously... BLESS. And while we’re at it… bless that poor waiter’s heart! And I mean that sincerely. I hope they leave him a huge tip. And I hope he spits in the miso soup she inevitably ends up ordering.
With Grace and Good Humor,
