The View from a Drawbridge

I had my first serving of teriyaki when I moved to Seattle in 2014, and I must say the stuff is really satisfying. It’s simple. Rice, the addition of your choice, (most commonly chicken or beef, but I’ve also seen salmon, mixed vegetables, shrimp, pork, and tofu) with a plain little salad on the side, and, of course, teriyaki sauce.  

Delicious. Filling. You can find it anywhere and you can count on it being fairly consistent. It’s also just about the only reasonably priced restaurant food you can get in this area. So far, so good.

But I’m beginning to think that the sauce itself is possessed by the devil. The stuff is the edible equivalent of a glue trap. Let’s take my most recent order of chicken teriyaki.

I picked some up on my way to have lunch with a friend. (Hi, Bev!) It came in that typical (and regrettable) Styrofoam container with its three compartments. It was in an (equally regrettable) heavy duty plastic bag, which also contained (thrice regrettable) plastic utensils and napkins. And for some reason these restaurants insist on knotting the bag so tightly that it takes a good 5 minutes to set your food free. But it’s worth the effort.

Somehow, during my drive downtown, the teriyaki sauce had migrated from the inside of the bag to the outside of it. I really should have known, based on past experience. Alas, I was too distracted by another inevitable Seattle tradition: my inability to find a parking space within two miles of my destination.

Finally, I settled on a $25 space, and started walking. In retrospect, I’m rather shocked that I didn’t leave a little drippy trail behind me, but no. The teriyaki sauce did not want to remain in its rightful place, but it still did not wander far, because it was determined to coat my world in goo.

My friend and I sat on a bench and enjoyed our repast. And I swear to God, the teriyaki sauce containers (yes, plastic) were full when we spread them on the food. That diabolical substance must have the ability to multiply like the Andromeda Strain.

Another nice thing about affordable teriyaki is that they give you so much of it, you can always count on leftovers. So after a very enjoyable lunch, we repackaged our food and set out on the long hike back to my car. I did notice at that point that there was “a little bit” of sauce on the outside of the bag, but hey, I was deep in interesting conversation with my friend, and it’s not like I had the ability to deal with it at that point.

When we got to my wildly overpriced parking space, I set the bag on the hood of the car in order to fish out my car keys, and that’s when I realized that the game was afoot. My car keys were coated in slime. My hands were sticky, too. I lifted my bag and the hood of my car was coated with the stuff.

I did the best I could to wash my hands and keys with hand sanitizer. I should have mitigated my damages by setting fire to the bag at that point. Under no circumstances should I have unleashed the kraken in my automobile, but a little voice inside me kept whispering, “but it tastes even better on the second day…”

So I fished out one of the many reusable shopping bags in my back seat, which never quite seem to be used as often as they should, and placed the offending object in there. I thought I had things under control. (But when have I ever had things under control?)

I drove to work, the whole time nervously watching the hood slime slowly approach my windshield. By the time I reached my destination, the bag was sitting in a pond of teriyaki sauce on the cloth seat of my car. (I have to admit that it did smell good, though.)

I was in a hurry, so I kind of sopped it up as best I could with some grocery bags and ran inside. I transferred the food into another container, and threw out the packaging. Problem solved. Well, unless you count the back seat. Which I didn’t at the time. I couldn’t even think about that.

During my 8 hour shift, here’s where I encountered teriyaki sauce: On the bottom of my shoes, and therefore all over the floor. On my pant leg. In my hair. On the garbage can lid. In the refrigerator. In the microwave (and I hadn’t even heated it up yet.) On my office chair. On my desk. In my desk drawer. On the computer screen, keyboard and mouse. On the toilet seat. On the telephone receiver. And on the small of my back.

But yes, God help me, the leftovers were delicious.

I had to clean everything, and I mean everything, before I left for the day. When I opened the car door to drive home, I could swear I heard an urgent “Shhhh!” On the commute, I felt as though the gelatinous muck in the back seat was watching me.

Home again, home again, I sopped as much of it up as I could and threw everything into the outside trash can. Then I hosed myself down like a dog (and mind you, it’s winter) stripped all my clothes off in the garage, stuffed them in the washing machine, and then headed straight in to the shower.

The next day I took everything off the back seat of my car (which I must admit was long overdue) and washed what I could. The rest I threw in that outdoor trash can with the original source of the problem. (And I would swear on my life that the can had moved several feet overnight.)

Then I used carpet cleaner and hot water on the back seat of my car. This actually worked well. But just to be on the safe side, I hosed myself down again and repeated the stripping and the showering.

Jebus, what an ordeal. I barely escaped with my sanity. You’d think that would put me off teriyaki for life. But, seriously, guys, it’s delicious.

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