Sushi restaurants (fiction)

“Define happiness,” he demands, thrusting his chopsticks in my general direction.
“What do you mean?” I query, my mind already spinning off on several different tangents.
“Well, the overall impression that I am getting from you right now is that you’re somewhat unhappy. Not totally unhappy, not sad, but you seem to be affected by, let us say, a tinge of unhappiness,” he proposes. “And I want you to define what happiness is.”
“What happiness is to me?” I ask. “I guess therein lies the answer. Happiness is relative. What makes me happy would likely not make you happy. Or maybe it would and that’s why we’re friends: because we’re similar,” my eyes water as I swallow a spicy tuna roll onto which I have liberally applied some potent wasabi. “I suppose that happiness is also relative in my own realm of experiences. The whole earnings versus savings thing.”
“What whole earnings versus savings thing? Why does it always come down to numbers with you accountant types?” he smirks, raising an eyebrow.
“Please. The dreary bookkeeper persona does not apply to me, we both know this. The parallel that I was trying to draw for you in regards to relative happiness is sort of like our propensity to save or consume. Don’t roll your eyes. If you make $50,000 a year and you save 10% of that – so $5,000 – then theoretically if you receive a $5,000 raise you should be saving an additional $500 per year. But there are arguments that, as we earn more we start to consume more. The more we have the more we want. The more trouble we can get into.”
“And you think this is the same with happiness? The more we have the more we want?”
“Yes. Sort of,” I nod, getting warmed up. “We get accustomed to having more and so we forget about times when we had less. I used to be content with an apartment that had silverfish scurrying about. I wore second hand clothes and paid $15 for my haircuts. I’m not sure now, that I would find that acceptable again. On the other hand, at the time in my life I was happy and content – on a relative scale – in that it took less to please me.”
Leaning back in his chair he surveys and scrutinizes me, “It took less to please you monetarily, or it took less to make you happy? You’re mixing your metaphors, or are you juxtaposing them: are you equating happiness with money?”
“That’s the $64,000 question,” I laugh, rolling around the inextricably linked money/happiness argument in my mind, like an ocean-smoothed stone in my palm. “They’re related, but I think there are diminishing returns.”
“In that more money brings you more happiness, but only up to a certain point? Do you know what that point is, because I need to make an appointment with my financial advisor to make sure I’m getting close to it,” he offers. Wry grin. Is he pandering to me?
I finish off the last of the gomae without engaging in the polite rote whereby I offer him first dibs. He knows my feelings on gomae. “This is getting complicated. I forget the question that you originally posited; was it to do with American Idol?”
“Nice try. If you don’t answer this question we’ll next debate whether Canadians being tried in states that have the death penalty should be put to death or extradited to Canada. I had originally asked for your definition of happiness.”
“This moment. Having sushi in this quaint, bustling sushi joint on a cold, bitter day with you. Also bitter. Wrapping my fingers around my hot mug of tea. Debating issues that likely have no merit to anyone but us at this particular moment.”
“I want to buy that, I really do,” he responds, looking at me with almost fondness. “But you’re copping out just a bit. You’re one step away from batting your proverbial eyelashes and we both know you’re not good at that.
I believe that you are happy now, in this instant, so extrapolate that further. We can’t sit in this sushi shop for the rest of our lives in order to perpetuate your happiness. Eventually I have to get home and do laundry.”
“And that’s just it: I hate laundry. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to grocery shop, either. Or take my car in for maintenance. I do just want to sit in this sushi shop indefinitely, in that this restaurant represents a moment of happiness and I want my life to be filled with non-stop moments like this. Perpetual happiness.”
He leans forward and looks directly at me. “And what do you think that every person sitting in this restaurant wants?”
“To be happy,” I reply dutifully, having already reached the logical conclusion that continues to abut my illogical desires. “And happiness can only be appreciated when there is its counterpart: unhappiness. And happiness is where you find it, and it is asking too much to be happy all the time when there are people who have but brief respites of happiness, or possibly no happiness at all. And finally: it is the act of wanting that makes us unhappy.”
“Well done,” he commends, pouring more tea for the both of us. “I think it’s your turn to buy, though I’m not sure how this will factor into your economic sliding-scale of happiness.”
“I would be happy to pick up the check,” I reply.