You Could Bribe 5-Year-Old Jess With Sushi
No kid likes getting dragged around on errands, and most will need a bribe at some point. I don't know how it happened, but from my very first piece of sushi, eaten off a high chair tray table sometime around 1989, candy and other logical child-bribes had no effect on me. What an expensive little jerk.
Most of these errands were run at the world-famous White Plains Galleria. I'm kidding, that place sucked fiercely and I totally hated it, but I knew decent behavior would earn me a trip to the sushi-go-round, where my mom and I would be the only people sipping tea at the modest conveyer belt because sushi hadn't really caught on in the 'burbs yet.
Ugh, now I feel old.
The Japanese chef would eye me skeptically while I hungrily watched him make California and tuna rolls. My behavior had been totally half-acceptable while picking out new sneakers and so good while Ma picked up more vacuum cleaner bags at Sears because Amazon wasn't a thing yet. People: Amazon and mainstream sushi weren't things yet.
The chef always made me tweezy chopsticks with a folded-up wrapper and rubber band and sent my rolls all the way around the conveyer belt while I squirmed with glee. It now occurs to me that he might not have ever seen another American three-year-old eat that many tuna rolls like she'd been waiting patiently all day for her mother to please effing finish errands so we can go to the sushi-go-round already!
Pre-made supermarket sushi in plastic containers became a thing while I was in middle school and was a poor but acceptable bribe for everything from not arguing about going to piano lessons or ballet and was a pretty okay consolation prize when I came home from math tutoring battered, bruised and near-dead.
Nowadays, the possibilities are endless: I can be bribed to go on dates I don't want to go on, to switch from sake to sake bombs at a moment's notice and to meet you all the way downtown because the sushi is better downtown for some reason. I'll even accompany you on your errands. But like, Amazon.
More sushi for lunch on Food Republic: