It was late, around 9 p.m., when I walked out of Stop & Shop with my dinner: a crunchy shrimp sushi roll and a gingerberry kombucha. I sat right outside the exit, on a bench adorned with a laminated “No Smoking” sign, and cracked open the plastic case that held my slightly plastic-tasting sushi. I unsheathed my chopsticks and was just tearing open the tiny soy sauce packets when a voice startled me.
“Are you gonna eat that?” someone said over my shoulder. I spun my head around and saw a middle-aged man leaning on his bicycle and staring at my sushi.
“Yeah — I was planning on it,” I said.
“Do you know how unhealthy that is?”
“The sushi?”
“Yeah. Just look how many ingredients it has listed.”
“Oh … yeah,” I said, glancing down at the white nutrition label.
“Everyone thinks sushi is so healthy, but it just isn’t,” he said. “And look, I love raw fish.”
“Well, I guess today it’s my special treat.”
“Yeah, well, sorry I said anything.”
“Oh, no, it’s okay.”
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be difficult. Enjoy it,” he said, taking one last glance at my sushi before biking away into the night. —Oliver Egger
Readers are invited to send their own mini-stories (word limit: 200) about funny, illuminating, only-on-the-Outer-Cape moments to [email protected] for consideration for “Incidentally.” We hope this will become a place for recording memorable snippets overheard at the post office, grocery store, beach, or wherever our stories take place.
