When They Come Back

Konnyaku

My wife is Japanese. And anyone who has a Japanese wife knows that they must, under all circumstances, be able to shop for Japanese food. It's like a survival imperative or something. The human will has been genetically engineered through eons of edge of death hardship to cultivate the very spirit of man's value for life and the Japanese wife must get her konnyaku (yam cake), so we can poop right. (The stuff moves through you like a train riding an avalanche made of buffaloes. Those who know are nodding wide-eyed with respect right now.)

Hey, this is serious stuff. And I hereby approach it with all great seriousness, especially because my wife reads my blog. So, this is me, serious.

Kon-nya-KUUUU!!

I've been shopping at Mitsuwa - a Japanese themed grocery and market - since before it was Mitsuwa. It used to go by the name "Yaohan," but that's going back some twenty years, at least. Ours sits in the burbs away from the city, so it's a bit of an adventure every time we go especially with weekend traffic. Just recently we went to get more poop cake. I mean, konnyaku. Serious.

Anyway, we pull into the lot and park. The place is in Arlington Heights, a nice, typical Midwestern suburb that's about as exciting as peach salsa - 'cause it's salsa, but, like, peach and stuff, and when you try it you're like, "Huh, peach." Yeah, it's like that.

So, we get out and a large white truck pulls up right behind us, stops, and the driver starts talking. I can't quite make what he's saying, but he's animated, and pointing to my truck, and I think this is weird.

I take one step closer to him, which still keeps me a good 10 feet away, and say, "Huh?" Although I was more polite, like, "'Scuse me?" And he says, "I can pound those out!" He means the dents in the rear of my car. See, I have dents in the rear of my car because an asshole driving a moving truck hit my car and put dents in it. I've had them for years and quite frankly think it gives my car a little thing called attitude. And now, White Truck Guy is apparently soliciting their removal. He's a mechanic, he says. I nod. And yes, it's weird to be solicited for auto body repair in the parking lot of my beloved Mitsuwa. If that was, in fact, what he wanted.

I raise a hand and thank him, but no-thank him. And he motions me over to his big white truck, as if I need more convincing, as if he's now going to try a better argument than the "I'm a mechanic, I can pound those dents out" one, which got him bupkis. White Truck Guy keeps talking, but having already given the "no thank you" hand wave, I turn back to my car and my wife and the matter of gathering our poop cake. Konnyaku!

The stinky natto or the really stinky natto? Decisions ...

We enter Mitsuwa and stay for, like, two hours - they've got a bookstore and a food court and a huge grocery, so it's not like we're the OJ jury arguing which brand of poop cake we should buy, because there are other pressing matters, like which brand of natto - fermented soybeans which act, taste, and smell like melted foot cheese - we will get. So, there's that too. Serious.

Finally, we leave. Bags in hand. And its always the same for her, like we're leaving behind a long lost sibling that's rotting in prison for a crime they didn't commit and we're working on an escape plan, because we know they shouldn't be there to begin with, and god only knows what happens to them on their own.

We pack the car. She sighs; looks longingly over her shoulder and eventually gets in - it's like "Sophie's Choice," for god's sake. I am now climbing into the car, when I notice in my driver-side mirror that the very same white truck and White Truck Guy has pulled up again more than two hours later. 

This time he's blocked us in - he's positioned his truck directly perpendicular to the back of mine so I can't pull out - and he's motioning to me to get out of the car and approach his. Maybe he wants to lay his new fangled "dent" argument on me that he's been practicing for the last two hours.

My mad face.

This makes me mad.

I rarely get mad at strangers, I generally don't give myself the chance to, but when you come at me sideways, like this guy did, when you act weird - solicit business in a parking lot to strangers - and do so provocatively and persistently, purposely hiding your real intentions that could potentially harm me and a loved one - my most loved one, my wife - yeah, I get mad.

Now, maybe the guy was totally legit. Maybe he was a young up and coming local mechanic just trying to make a name for himself and if I would only give him a chance he could do some great work for me. Fine. I totally accept the possibility of that actually being the case.

But what is also actually the case was that I heard him the first time. Clearly. And I said no. In fact, I said, "I appreciate it, but no thanks," with a "real" smile, not "Get away from me, you douchebag." So in this moment I saw no legitimate reason as to why he would come back. Yet, here he is.

Natto. Go throw up now.

The only flutter of motive I thought of was pride. Pride to the fact he had failed with me the first time and was now bound and determined to see this through, whatever his end game was.

And so he pins us in and motions to me to get out and chat. So, I did what any level-headed, trained philosopher would do. I started the car, threw it into reverse, and jammed on the gas.

The car reared like a linebacker at the snap straight for his white truck. And the young man did exactly what I knew he would do - hastily throw his car into reverse to avoid mine. (Can't pull auto body biz in grocery store parking lots in a dented car, right?) We then left straightaway and I would call Police to report his ass.

The way I see it, I gave him a pass the first time around. He came to me acting strange, hiding his real motives. Instead of calling him out and confronting him - ramping up conflict - I gave him a pass. Hey, we had poop cake to buy.

But then, he came back. And once he came back it was game on. A game I had no intention of giving him a chance to make a play in. Now, I know nothing of sports, but that would be like throwing a ball at the last yard line in like, a really important (maybe most important) football game or something, when you have a perfectly capable running guy (running back?) who has always managed to score into the end place under those very conditions and you choose not to use him. Right. That would just be stupid.

Now, I'm off to the bathroom. My train is here.