A Splendid Dining Table🍽️

An atmosphere of obligatory togetherness had somehow come to drift over the Tanaka family's dining table.

Conversations usually began with "Did anything happen today?" and ended with "Shall we eat?"

One day, the wife, Masayo, suddenly made a declaration.

"Father. Starting today, I am going to reconstruct our family dining table as a 'theater of emotion and empathy.'"

"A theater? Re... reconstruction..."

Yoichi's hand, which had been eating frozen fried rice, stopped.

"Yes. Our dining table is far too lacking in emotion.At this rate, the 'class' of our meals will only continue to decline. From today on, 'peak performance' is mandatory during meals."

The first thing Masayo made mandatory was a "moving food review."

After stuffing his cheeks with ordinary meat and potatoes, Yoichi was forced to put down his chopsticks, cover his face with both hands, take a deep breath, and say this:

"...Th-this meat and potatoes is, as if... a m-metaphor for the meat and potatoes my mother made when I was a child!"

"Still insufficient."

Masayo said with a straight face.

"You lack tears. Try amplifying the 'pathos of the theater of life' within yourself a little more."

Yoichi had no choice but to recall the unreasonable scolding of his former boss and force his tear ducts to activate. When he said "It's a meta-metaphor!" while shedding tears, Masayo nodded with satisfaction.

This food review performance gradually escalated.

Even when Yoichi just licked soy sauce off his plate, he had to recite over and over, "The saltiness of this soy sauce is a condensation of the crystals of effort I shed in society."

Furthermore, a strange new rule was introduced by Masayo.

Masayo would lift a grilled eggplant with both hands and bite into it all at once with a desperate expression like a Kabuki actor.

Yoichi was required to perform exaggerated and slow movements like a geisha so as not to spill a single drop of miso soup.

The menu for one night was curry rice.

Masayo placed a large plate of curry in front of Yoichi.

Now, dear. How will you express this 'dish that symbolizes universal domestic happiness'?

Yoichi tensed his entire body, and his fingers holding the spoon were trembling. He desperately thought of the best performance worthy of the 'status' of curry rice.

Before long, he stood up, cradled the curry plate, and said to his wife with a serious expression.

I will not sully this curry with the mundane act of 'eating' it! This sacred mass should continue to exist right here as a 'specimen of happiness'!

Yoichi held the curry plate above his head, and just as he seemed to be leaving the dining table, he respectfully displayed the curry inside the sideboard.

U-um, dear?

Masayo was stunned.

How is that? With this, the 'status' of the dining table has been preserved.

From that day on, proper meals stopped appearing on the Tanaka family's dining table.

The next morning, only a halved rolled omelet was placed on the living room table.

What is this?

It's a 'married couple's misunderstanding egg'.

...Am I allowed to eat it?

To eat art? You really have low status, don't you?

My apologies.

Naturally, behind the scenes, they were devouring cup noodles, snacks, canned goods, emergency rations, and online delivery sushi and beef bowls.

It's no good... Let's stop pursuing the status of the dining table.

I-it seems bad for our health...

The couple lived in a room in a 35-year-old apartment building. Although their children had moved out and they had more space, it had become a storage room before they knew it. It was a very ordinary 3LDK apartment with no particular complaints, but also nothing to be particularly proud of.

One day, as Masayo was rearranging the living room for the first time in a while, Yoichi muttered.

“This is nice. At this rate, it wouldn't be a stretch to call it a ‘splendid living room.’”

Masayo looked up.

“...Dear, did you just say ‘splendid’?”

“Yeah, I did. Was that strange?”

“No, it wasn't strange. It's just that this sofa cover doesn't match the status of ‘splendid.’”

Yoichi was speechless.

“Status? Does a living room have status?”

“Of course it does. The status of this living room is, at best, ‘not too bad,’ or if I try hard, maybe a passing grade. Your ‘splendid’ status requires ‘splendid furniture.’”

From there, the couple's battle to upgrade their status began.

“This status is too low.”

“No, this is still acceptable.”

“The remote control is too light.”

First, the TV remote, which had been ordinary plastic, was replaced with a ‘splendid remote’ made of ebony weighing a full kilogram. Its usability was terrible.

Next, Masayo insisted that they needed a painting to display in the living room.

“A splendid living room requires impressive art.”

What arrived after being found online was an abstract painting titled ‘Contempt for Nihility,’ which was mostly frame, with the actual painting being only the size of a fingertip.

“Is this a painting?”

Yoichi said, pointing at the frame.

“It's splendid because it's incomprehensible.”

Masayo said with satisfaction.

Next, Masayo installed a 'magnificent telephone' in the living room.

That said, the golden, shining phone she bought online was a toy, so it was just a brass megaphone connected to a pipe on the ceiling that Masayo had installed in a fit of rage after being deceived.

'What is this?'

'From today on, this is our string telephone.'

Yoichi picked up the megaphone like a receiver and said, 'Tea.'

The megaphone amplified Yoichi's voice, which traveled through the ceiling pipe and echoed out of the other megaphone with a deep, booming 'TEAAAAAA!'

'That "tea" is far too mundane for this living room!'

Masayo retorted at high volume.

Annoyed, Yoichi tried to choose the most dignified words he could.

'...W-what have you decided to serve for dinner tonight?'

'I believe that thick, long fried shrimp would be the most magnificent choice tonight!'

Before long, the conversation in the living room lost all meaning and turned into a mere volume contest.

One evening, Masayo asked Yoichi.

'What is the most magnificent achievement in your life?'

Yoichi gripped the megaphone and shouted with all his might.

'I have no great work that I have accomplished! I am just an ordinary man!'

Yoichi's self-deprecating remark about being an 'ordinary man' made Masayo's 'upgrading spirit' unbearable.

'Idiot!'

In the quiet living room, both of them had become a little hard of hearing.

“...Well then, I'll fry the shrimp.”

Masayo said quietly.

“...Yeah.”

For the first time in a while, the two of them savored the quiet of a perfectly ordinary conversation.🦐🥗