The Teriyaki Restaurant Fiasco

The following story actually occurred. It happened yesterday. I heard it straight from my husband Matt, who experienced it all.

When Matt got home from work yesterday, he was a little agitated.

He said, “I have GOT to tell you about my lunch today. It was the most horrible thing I have ever seen.”

So I said, “Who was chomping their food this time?” Matt’s pet peeve is when people talk with food in their mouths. He often tells me very animated stories about suffering through lunches with clients or colleagues who are chompers.

“No, this was worse. Way worse.”

So I tried to think of something worse. “Was someone bare-breasted breast feeding at the next table?”

“No. Barring violence, what is the worst possible thing I could have seen?”

So I thought for a moment . . . “A penis.”

“YES!” He said, emphatically pointing a finger at me.

So I laughed. “How did you manage to see a penis at lunch?”

And so then he related the following story:

He has been working through lunch all week, trying to stay on top of his work because things are busy. One of his co-workers, Cami, who has also been skipping lunch, came and asked if he wanted to grab a bite to eat, and he thought a break sounded nice. So off they went to a little Teriyaki place nearby.

Matt and Cami were comfortably situated at their table when a homeless man came in. The man went to the counter and very loudly started asking about every item on the menu. Apparently he wanted a description and a price for every single thing before making a selection. This went on for quite a while. Matt had his back to the counter and was trying to ignore it all. Cami wasn’t so lucky. After a while her eyes got really big and she said, “Oh my gosh, his pants are sinking down.”

Matt turned around to assess the situation and was greeted by at least half a moon. The man’s pants, which were way too large for him, had fallen very low on his hips. No underwear. Matt said he pretty much saw the entire “Bum’s bum.”

Well, not being one to stare at such a thing, Matt turned around to try to finish his lunch.

Matt is not sure how it happened, certainly the pants had something to do with it, but shortly thereafter the man fell down. His pants found themselves around his knees. And there he lay, on the floor, exposing . . . everything.

The commotion of the fall had caused Matt to turn around, and to his dismay he got another eyeful—and not just of the backside this time. The man was lying in such a way that everyone could see his backside and his squeaker. (My nephew Tyler coined the phrase “squeaker” when he started describing his own anatomy as a toddler. We have all used it ever since.)

The man started yelling, “Help! Someone help me up! I can’t get up.”

Matt is usually one to lend a hand. Normally he is a Good Samaritan. But something about seeing a naked squeaker in a Teriyaki restaurant had paralyzed him, and he hesitated just long enough that two guys from behind the counter came and helped the man up.

But apparently they couldn’t be troubled to help the man pull his pants up. And he couldn’t be troubled either. And so he walked to a nearby table, pants around his ankles, and sat down. He was still exposed when his food arrived and he began eating it.

Matt and Cami were trying to ignore the man and his naked squeaker. They were more successful than the guy at another table, who after a while couldn’t take it anymore, and yelled at him, “Hey! Could you pull your pants up? We’re trying to eat in here!”

The homeless man stopped eating, “Oh sorry. I didn’t think you could see that from over there.” And then he wiggled his pants back up around his waist. “I guess that’s pretty disgusting.”

The guy at the other table agreed: “Yes, it’s VERY disgusting!”

The bum then decided to turn his attention to Matt and Cami—probably an unsuccessful attempt to help everyone in the restaurant to forget the last five minutes.

“So how long have you two been together?” he asked.

“We aren’t together. We just work together,” Cami responded.

“Oh, it must be nice to have someone you can talk to and share your feelings with,” he said.

“Yeah.”

I’m pretty certain that Matt wasn’t very into the small talk. I think he felt he already knew far more about this stranger than he wanted to. He told me that they finished their lunch and got out of there as fast as they could.

Matt said he had never experienced anything like that before, and he was surprised that the workers at the restaurant hadn’t put a stop to it.

I told him he should have called 911. Indecent exposure. Or he should have called 911 just because it’s fun.

Well, one thing is for certain. I think it will be a while before we go out for teriyaki.