When the woman brought the bill, Mom smiled at her and said thank you, which was a lie, because Mom hates when people bring her the bill. When Mom and Dad were married, Mom would always pretend like she was going to pay and when Dad took the bill, which he always did, she said more lies like, ‘Are you sure? Okay, wow, thanks honey.’ Now that Dad doesn’t eat with us anymore, maybe I should pretend to take the bill from Mom and say a lie like, ‘Oh really? Okay, thanks Mom’ but I don’t because lies are for adults who are sad in their lives.

The mean woman took the bill back without saying thank you. I guess she is not sad. But she is definitely angry.

I understand why the people who work here are so angry. I guess it’s like working at a gas station, but instead of cars, they have to fill up people. And people eat slowly and talk about their stupid lives at the table and make each other laugh but when the people who serve the food come by, they stop laughing and talking and become quiet like they don’t want to let anyone else know about their great jokes. And if the people who bring the food talk about their lives, they’re not allowed to talk about how bad it is, only how good it is, like, ‘I’m doing great, how are you?’ And if they say something truthful like, ‘I’m doing terrible, I’m a waiter here,’ they will probably get fired and then they will be even worse. So it’s probably always a good idea to talk about things happily. But sometimes that’s impossible. That’s why I’m giving Sushi Nozawa 16 out of 2000 stars.