I mistakenly took my parents to a Japanese restaurant near my house, and now I'll never return. I had forgotten how they enjoy putting me in embarrassing situations. My father kept trying to make tons of jokes to the waiters and waitresses and customers, but they don't understand english, let alone his humour. He kept referring to my mom as his "boss." First they don't understand what boss means and if they marginally did, he only accomplishes confusing them.
He also waved down the waiters to sit beside him as my mom took pictures. I was mortified. We had huge blinking TOURIST exclamations above our heads. There was one girl he thought was cute and as she walked closer I saw him eyeing her and about to open his mouth. I blurted, "if you're going to tell her to sit beside me, so you can take our picture, I'm going to kill you." He grinned like a rogue and closed his mouth.
On my left, my mom, closet director, had the video camera in her hand: Joe use your chopsticks. Smile. You're happy. Turn the plate. Now eat something. (Picture me motionless, staring directly ahead, pokerfaced).
There was also a drunk guy beside us who toppled to the washroom and who on the way back befriended my father. They kept cheering with grunts and not really saying much and smashing their mugs while laughing like hyenas then warmly rubbing each other's backs.
Admist all this, I tried so hard to look cool -- and man, I really like looking cool too.
At the end when I went to pay, the girl at the cash complimented me on my leather jacket by touching my jacket and smiling and did something positive with her hands like a thumbs up. I was going to say something cool to the cute cashier when my dad quite suddenly appeared behind me, did a monkey face and said something like "ahhhh, yes, look, look," and raised his eyebrows and enthusiastically pointed at my shoes. She smiled and nodded, forced to agree that my shoes were cool too. I quickly paid her and slunk away before my father could point at other things.
My parents still think I'm socially handicapped and believe that they have to intervene on my behalf whenever there is a pretty girl present.
My days off with my parents are over. I really did have a lot of fun seeing them again and seeing them leave, as always, will be bittersweet.
PS The picture of my parents has nothing to do with the post but was of them when I took them to see cherry blossoms in Shinjuku. I'm usually not into that kind of thing, but I was awed by the beauty of the place.
PPS The girl my dad was about to call over to sit beside me for a picture really was cute, but we had an initial awkward situation when she was waiting at the beginning to take our drink orders. I kept trying to tell her to give me more time. I flashed five fingers and pointed at my watch. I shrugged my shoulders, flashed five fingers and pointed at my watch again. She just kept staring at me in confusion like I wanted to order five drinks and she had better bring it to me in time or something. Finally, after an uncomfortable minute (which felt like 7 days) I just said "Coke, one Coke" so she would leave.
