TheBanyanTree: it's just lunch

[Mike Pingleton]

The health food store has a lunch counter, and they do a brisk business most
days. Right ahead of me in line was a small man around sixty, and ahead of
him was a woman in her late thirties accompanied by her mother. The woman
seemed to be having a hard time making a decision. She asked to taste a half
dozen of the dishes under the glass. She wanted to make substitutions. She
changed her mind. She changed her mind again.

Then she turned to her mother. "Are you hungry, Mom?" Now it was Mom's turn
to dither. She asked for samples. She discussed choices with her daughter. I
looked at my watch - nearly fifteen minutes had passed, and now the line
behind me snaked into the grocery section. I was at the end of my rope and
ready to shout "IT'S JUST LUNCH - PICK SOMETHING!" but a second order taker
stepped up on the other side of the counter. The man in front of me ordered
a bowl of soup in a quiet voice with a thick accent I couldn't place,
Hungary or Poland or Romania maybe.

I ordered my sandwich and then joined the small man who ordered soup in the
line at the register. The woman and her mother were having trouble deciding
how to pay. The woman waited until her order was rung up, and then proceeded
to fish around in her purse for her wallet. She pulled out a half dozen
plastic cards and shuffled through them all several times before selecting
one. Then Mother woke up and said "oh, let me buy you lunch, dear". A
discussion ensued. The daughter ended up paying in the end, while the small
man with the soup shook his head and I felt my forehead getting hot.

The man paid for his soup, looked at me and said "I hope my soup isn't
cold."

"All that over lunch," I said back to him.

"That woman has never been hungry in her whole life," he said to me, and
from the quiet way he spoke I realized that he knew what real hunger was.