I’ve written before on how, since all of my kids were little, I’ve taken each one on a special date every week. And without a doubt, the experiences that my youngest son and I have had during those dates trump out any and all dates I’ve been on with my other kids—combined!
Now before you start thinking that I have a favorite kid—I don’t—or that I haven’t enjoyed special one-on-one time spent with my other children, allow me to elaborate. On these dates, no tasks are to be addressed other than the two of us hanging with one another. Sometimes we grab a coffee together, other times, a bite to eat. And there have been times when we’ve just gone on a walk or hike together.
It’s the times when my youngest son and I have gotten a bite to eat that often get…interesting, or more specifically, those individuals we encounter are champions at being odd, eccentric or just plain crazy.
Allow me to share one of but a countless number of experiences my son and I have had. This one took place in a respectable neighborhood, a sleepy little bedroom community, if you will. And it all began when we were considering where we wanted to go on our date that afternoon.
We decide on Carl’s Jr. Even before we entered, the weirdness began. As I was pulling into a parking space, I couldn’t help but notice a homeless man stumbling his way around the entrance, bouncing and pinging his way off the side of the building similar to a pinball. We couldn’t discern if he was drunk, high or just suffering from severe malnutrition. My son and I waited before getting out of the car, watching the man, wondering if with each new bounce off the wall and renewed stagger to regain his balance he would succeed or fall flat.
We were almost relieved when the man finally managed to make his way into the parking lot and stumbled away. Not that we’re not compassionate, just didn’t know what to do. Talking to him would have been out of the question, seeing as his mind appeared to be too far-gone.
My son and I went inside, placed our orders and found a table. While waiting for our food, the homeless man lurched his way into the restaurant, bumping into tables indiscriminately.
Please, dear lord, don’t have him sit next to us.
Seconds later, he poured himself into a booth just across from us.
Great! Just great!
We watched in silent rapt fascination as the man, although somewhat upright, appeared to have melted against the table.
Hmmm…. Odd.
Suddenly he leaned so far to his right that we feared he might just topple over and collapse against the bench. He struggled to extract something from his rear left pocket—a crumpled bag of sunflower seeds. Flinging it on the table, a good many spilled out.
The man seemed not to care, taking one and placing it in his mouth. He chewed for what seems like fooooooreeeeeever.
It’s just a sunflower seed. How long can it take to chew?
The man seemed determined to eek out every possible bit of flavor, nutrients or whatever from that single seed. But then, in a sudden aggressive act, he jammed two of his filthy fingers into his mouth.
Why? What could he possibly be trying to fetch? There can’t be any seed left.
Moments later, he retracted his fingers, a string of saliva attached, gripping a slobbered upon masticated shell, which he promptly wiped onto the table top, before grabbing another seed to repeat the whole disgusting process.
Ewwwww!
At some point, my son’s and my food had been delivered to our table. By whom? I had no idea. Could have been delivered by a purple hippo in a pink tutu, and neither of us would have noticed, too enthralled with the homeless man’s stomach-retching antics.
With the greatest effort, I pulled my attention away from the man and to my son, said, “So, tell me about your day.”
My son shrugged, trying to focus on our conversation, not the man. “Not much to tell,” he said.
Great! Here I was hoping to engage in some conversation that might distract us from the man. Hmmm, this isn’t going at all well.
Just as I was formulating another conversation approach with my son, another man came and sat a few booths away from the homeless one, who had given up his sunflower eating endeavor and moved onto dumping all the lose change in his pockets onto the bench next to him.
Why…? Why do I even ask?
I’m not sure he knew the answer.
The new man was missing the majority of his teeth and the ones he did have dangled precariously on his lower lip. As he attempted to eat his burger, a ring of mayonnaise squeezed out, smearing a wide ring around his mouth closely resembling a clown’s makeup. As if that wasn’t enough to cause a second look, there was his left eye. Its lazy lid, half closed like that of a doll with blinking eyes that didn’t quite work correctly, seemed to work independently of the other—opening and closing in hyper slow motion.
I looked at my son and realized that we’d both been staring—couldn’t help it—and forced myself to look away. Off in the far corner, I noticed yet another lone man sitting at a table.
What is it with strange lone men here today?
I watched as other patrons acknowledged him with slight head nods or pleasant greetings as they passed. The man had no food, which seemed to disturb him not. His posture was grand, almost regal.
Strange.
There before we arrived, I had no doubt the man would be there long after my son and I left. A resident guy who sat in the corner booth all day, no place else to go.
Wait a minute. Gross! What was that he just did? Is he clearing his throat…or his stomach? Ew!
By this point I began laughing. Not sure why, and I couldn’t seem to stop myself. All of this was just so surreal. Here we were sitting in a restaurant that we had frequented often, never before having encountered even one eccentric individual. But today, it appeared we’d become part of some bizarre Twilight Zone episode where everyone who was in the establishment, other than us, was over-the-top unusual.
I drew my thoughts away from the odd individuals and realized that my son was commenting on the nearby plastics factory fire that was burning out of control, belching huge blackened plumes of toxic smoke into the sky. I shared my thoughts that perhaps that was why everyone was acting so strange.
The man in the corner attempted to clear his stomach again, just as the homeless man struggled to pull himself into a standing—well, sort of—position. Momentarily losing his balance, the homeless man grabbed either side of the table and remained hunched over it.
Oh, lord! He’s going to throw up, adding to the half-eaten slobbery mass of sunflower seed shells littering the tabletop.
Cracking under the weight the totality of my mind’s image, I burst into uncontrolled fits of laughter. My son, following my gaze, also began laughing, but was able to recover his composure. Meanwhile, I was not. Completely overtaken, my shoulders shook and tears streamed down my face. Helpless, I watch my son nervously look around us before he said, “Mommy, get a hold of yourself. People are staring.”
That made me laugh more. “I…I’m sorry,” I began. “I’m trying.”
“Well, try harder,” my son pleaded. “You’re making us look like the weird ones here.” Apparently the irony of my son’s words was not lost on him, and he, too, burst into laughter. By this point, both of us had given up all hopes of eating and, deciding to cut our losses, prepared to leave.
Just then, another man walked past us. I noticed, with utter fascination, that he had what appeared to be a large cup of coffee and a metal fork. A fork? Why would he need a fork? My son was standing, ready to go. I locked eyes with him and motioned towards the man who had situated himself at the deserted sunflower seed encrusted table, despite there being other locations to sit.
To each their own.
“Hold on a minute,” I whispered, “I’m dying to see what he’s going to do.” My son looked over, caught sight of the man and silently sat back down—like me, a fascinated look upon his face.
Silently and with no apparent concern for who was watching, the fork man reached into his bag and withdrew a package of Top Ramin.
What?! Top Ramin? When did it become acceptable to prepare your own meal in a fast-food restaurant? I thought the idea was to buy the restaurant’s food. Hmmm….
My son and I looked at one another, neither saying a word. I mean, what was there to say?
Now even one of these individuals would have added extra spice to my son’s and my date. But the fact that literally every single person who entered the restaurant that day, other than us, acted in such a bizarre fashion had us seriously wondering if we’d entered an alternate universe where things that we knew to be the norm ceased to exist, replaced by super-sized oddities.
And to think, this is just one example of a barrage of strange encounters we’ve had together—always together.
