Noodles & Booze

I had brunch plans with The Grandmother today for what's arguably the best ramen on the westside. The Grandmother loves soups in general and loves any place that's new and different to her, and she was excited. A few days ago though I warned her that the ramen place doesn't serve booze. The Grandmother right away said, "Well maybe you'd like to go somewhere else?"

Because I'm clearly more poorly behaved than The Brother, I quickly reassured her that we'd have booze, that I would take care of it. I arrived at her place at 9 a.m. to fix a few things on her computer and around the house before driving to brunch. The Grandmother, understandably still worried about the lack of booze at the restaurant, offered me a glass of wine as soon as I walked in the door. I appreciated the thought, but 9 a.m. is a little early, even for me.

We waited until almost 10 before cracking open a bottle. I found two glasses and a bottled water in her kitchen cabinets, emptied the water, poured a healthy serving of wine into each glass and the rest into the emptied water bottle. We had our first glass of wine at her house and took the rest to go, and as I stuffed the water bottle into my purse, The Grandmother said twice, "I can't believe I never thought to do that."

At the ramen place, which is inside a Japanese marketplace and food court, there were big signs visible from every table that said "No Consumption of Alcoholic Beverages Permitted on Premises." The Grandmother took two small styrofoam cups from a stack by a water cooler, and whispered to me to pour the wine into the cups while we waited for our order (one spicy miso ramen, one shio ramen, one small side of sticky rice with chashu, if you must know). I shook my head and took the cups straight back to the water cooler to fill them with actual water.

I have a general theory about lying and deceit: anything is best hidden right in the open. People get caught when they act like they've got something that needs concealing. Instead, I commit most of my sins in plain view, and if you haven't figured this out about me already, I get away with almost everything. (That's the privilege, I suppose, of being white and clean-cut and small--there's nothing physically intimidating or suspicious about me.) So I waited for the ramen to arrive and then put the water bottle from my purse right on the table next to our bowls and cups, and I took a big healthy swig before nudging it across the table to The Grandmother. She looked around, a little nervous, but I encouraged her. "People will just assume you're drinking water. No one thinks that the white girl with her nice little grandmother is boozing openly."

She took one more look around and then finally drank, and when the booze-police didn't pop out to arrest her, she drank again and smiled widely, clearly pleased with herself. We swapped the bottle back and forth, and the bowls too (The Grandmother decided she liked the spicy miso better than the shio, so we switched twice), and we eventually made it back to the car pleasantly full and buzzed.

On the drive home, I asked her if she'd enjoyed the ramen enough to go back sometime. "Oh, yes," she said, "but we'll have to remember to bring two bottles. Now that I know how you do it."