[guest post] Solo Midori

This is a guest post by Vikram, the continuously interim patron saint of Bac-Log! My supercomputers at work are still busy churning out the exact total, but my guess is that Vik tries to get me to go to Midori 17 or 18 times per week. And I totally would, if I didn't have to take a long lunch, drive across town, and pay to park, all for the $7 spicy chicken lunch special, supreme awesomeness aside.

So most of our (Seattle-based) friends have no doubt heard the Kyles, Grant, and I talk about going to Midori Teriyaki for lunch many times. I would say that Heenkypants and I probably go there 1-2 times a week, Steuck and Grant meeting up with us when they can. It's always nice to get away from work for a little bit, and the teriyaki is really really good. So last Friday I found myself on the sharp end of an especially brutal day (week, actually) at the Hutch and needed Midori. Seriously, I NEEDED it. I tried to rally the troops, but unfortunately everyone else was in similarly precarious situations. I don't know what came over me, but I did it. Solo Midori was had. As I dug in, something was immediately a little off. Can of Coke? Check. Extra glass of water? Check. Extra teriyaki sauce? Check. Sriracha? Check. Everything seemed to be in order. I put it out of my mind and plowed through. And it was good. Not as good as normal, though. The weird thing was that I couldn't quite put my finger on what was off. It should have been another stellar lunch at Midori. But it wasn't. I chalked it up to my stressful week at work and trekked back to the Hutch. But halfway there, my stomach staged a mini-revolt. I toughed it out, but by the time I got back to my desk the revolt had made it's way up to my chest. It felt like there were a bunch of tiny little men trying to stab their way out of my chest. Not good times. BAD TIMES. My co-worker Becky (you might remember her from some of her awesome posts on the There Will Be Bacon blog as the Beckster) immediately started checking for signs that I was having a heart attack. Unfortunately, she got some of the symptoms wrong and started freaking out because she thought I was having a heart attack. I had to practically tackle her to keep her from running out into the hall and grabbing a portable defibrillator (a machine that she didn't know how to use). On my way home, I pondered the events of the day. Why had Midori betrayed me so? As I was cursing the gods (Poseidon knows what he did), it finally dawned on me. Midori hadn't betrayed me. I had betrayed it! And my friends. And this was Midori's way of letting me know what I had done. It was as if Midori was the physical manifestation of our love and mutual admiration for each other, and when I went there alone I was eating myself. Or something like that. In any event, I learned a valuable lesson about myself and the world in general. I will never take my friends for granted again. I will leave you with the words of some of our generation's greatest wordsmiths:

Don't you forget about me
I'll be alone, dancing you know it baby
Going to take you apart
I'll put us back together at heart, baby

Don't You Forget About Me
Don't Don't Don't Don't
Don't You Forget About Me