The Characters We Meet

During our lunch break I was sitting alone at a round table. A “more mature” lady approached the next table where another gentleman sat alone. (Mature is a nice way of saying older.)

I would say she was somewhere between 400 and 600 years old, thin as a rail, and absolutely full of energy, like a nuclear reactor. She owned the space she was in, and it was clear that a real ‘presence’ had chosen to sit near us. She walked with a level of prissiness, as if the rest of us, and the world around her was somehow ‘unclean’ and not worthy of being in her presence.

The gentlemen at the next table stood up when she approached. She stopped, looked at him over a pair of gem-encrusted glasses, then sat down.

Now my mom and dad brought me up in the south, and I know better than to eavesdrop or stare, but I just knew deep in my gut that the show was about to start, and I had a front row seat!

What happened next imprinted this lady into my memory for a LONG time. They started talking right off the bat and she said, “Oh well, I forgot my utensils,” to which the young man said, “Let me go get them for you.”

She looked over her gem-encrusted glasses again, stuck her nose down a little and said, “Are you for real?”

The smile on my face was starting to spread… here we go.

He just nodded, taken aback from her question, and she said, “Thank you but I can do it myself,” and then stood up and got her utensils.

He stood as she did, which caused her to pause, look at him again, then he sat down as she “prissed away”. This was one of those times where I wanted to call people and let them know that some highly interesting human interactions were about to take place. Get the popcorn and come join in.

“So what do you do here?” she asked.

They talked for a few minutes and then he said, “Ma’am, I need to get back to my table in the hall, but since I am the only one here with you, would you like me to stay with you till you are finished with your meal?”

“Precious”, my new name for her, looked up slowly and said “Okay, are you for real?” Her head tilted sideways a bit and her overly fixed PERFECT hair seemed to have a presence of its own.

He was totally caught off guard by this question and didn’t know what to do other than say, “Yes ma’am’.”

“You are for real,” she repeated as if he were an alien from another planet, or if she would reach over and pinch him, however I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

He said, “My mom and dad taught me the way to treat a lady.”

She burst into his answer like a flood. “Clearly your mom beat you or something because it stuck, you ain’t no hound-dog!”. Now this was all occurring while she was holding her fork with her pinky up and a look of credulity fixed on her face, over what he had said to her.

He started laughing and I did also, to myself.

“Well, you need to tell my girlfriend what you think!” The young man said half joking.

“Dial her up right now,” Precious ordered.

Precious took the phone from him as if he had some form of disease, held it gently to her ear, but not quite touching it, and said, “Now Elizabeth, I am sitting across from your boyfriend and you know what? This boy actually stood UP when I came to the table, then he offered to get me my utensils, stood UP when I came back, and then offered to stay at the table while I finished my meal. THIS BOY IS A KEEPER! His mom must have beat him good because it stuck. He ain’t no houndog! I don’t know what your plan is but you got to figure out how to keep this one. Don’t let him get away!”

Once ‘her majesty’ had spoken, it was like a switch got flipped off. She handed back the phone, dismissed the young man and the conversation, and went back to eating as though no one was there.

He was laughing with his girlfriend on the phone as he stepped away. I could hear him say, “Yea she is for real. I just met her…”

You know what, we each meet characters on our journey and I think this particular one is a keeper! If she gets her way, she will show up in my next children’s book, “The Worlds Bravest Grasshopper”.