COUPONS THEY LET YOU TAKE A RAIN CHECK ON AT TANIGUCHI’S
by MELISSA LLANES BROWNLEE
your mada wen tell you make sure you get two cases SPAM, because we gotta make musubis
for wen we pick coffee, but they never have, same with da Vienna Sausages, da kine your
fada like eat raw after filling his one hundred pound coffee bags on da Tamura’s farm, and no
more Hormel canned corned beef either, and you stay hungry for fry ‘em with onions and
cabbage, and you like make fried saimin too with da Oriental Maruchan Ramen, but no can,
because all da shelves stay empty, and you still need rice, but no get da 25 pound bag of
Calrose, and you know your mada going be mad, and then you check da freezer section and
no get da 5 pound box of Tyson chicken thighs you need for make shoyu chicken for dinner,
and no get da Charmin toilet paper, and you stay worried your mada going give you dirty
lickins, even though you stay getting da rain checks for everything, and you no like get any
more stuff with da coupons because you stay worried everything stay gone already, and you
still need one gallon 2% milk, 2 dozen eggs, some Roman Meal bread because your mada
like eat healthy, and you need hamburger for make loco moco, and maybe, if can, get cheap
ahi belly for poke, and your mada like make salad with carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, but they no
have dat stuff on sale, and you no can get da stuff that not on sale, and you look at da
tomatoes, da oranges, da bananas, and da papayas, and you no get coupons for them, and they
stay too expensive and you stay sad you only live in one apartment and you no get one yard
for grow your own food
Melissa Llanes Brownlee (she/her), a native Hawaiian writer living in Japan, has work published and forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Moon City Review, and Redivider, and honored in Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and Wigleaf Top 50. Read Hard Skin (2022) and Kahi and Lua (2022) and check out her new collection, Bitter over Sweet (2025), from Santa Fe Writers Project. She tweets @lumchanmfa and talks story at melissallanesbrownlee.com.
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