Today I took off from work, to run 2 errands and enjoy some of my favorite food, at a relaxed pace. Let us walk through the day.
I drop my car off for service and detailing, and go get breakfast. Pastrami and eggs. This is how a day needs to be started, okay? It's also good for those mornings when you feel your constitution isn't up to the nova/eggs/onions. Even better is when you know that a really attractive girl made your eggs.
Then I kind of putz around for a while, letting the day drip like syrup. Lunch time rolls around so I walk to my favorite teriyaki joint in the whole world. I haven't been there in almost a year. It is closed. I'll let that sink in.
...
It's harsh. Like skinning your knee, blood running all down your leg, picking gravel bits out of it, worrying about infections.
I couldn't help but think that I could've done something. If I didn't switch jobs, to a job 25 miles away, I could've continued to eat there 3 or 4 times a week. That would've been like $20-25 a week extra for them. Over a year that's around $1250. Did they close up because I stopped coming, that I thought their product was weak? Their product was not weak! It was delicious! And they had back issues of the New Yorker. What would expect a teriyaki place to have? Maybe People or perhaps some ragged copies of The Stranger? This place was different.
(What's keeping me going is the notion that the building might be coming down or something, like there was just some circumstances.)
There was really only 1 other person I identified as a regular, like me. She was older, maybe 60, and read the paper. She had tea and sushi. Some other people would get their stuff to-go, but part of why I liked this place so much is this: metal flatware. Some teriyaki places stiff you with the plastic crap. That does not fly with me. We are humans and deserve to be treated as such.
You see the sign that says "For Lease" and the dark space that occupies it, you go hollow. You don't know this city anymore. At all. All you have now are some memories of the 2 greatest teriyaki joint dishes ever made and a belly full of pastrami and eggs.
