Monday
Nov122007
Solitary lunch
Monday, November 12, 2007 at 09:36AM
The lady on my left had long shiny blonde hair, as if she was trying to look younger than she was. The bangs gave it away. Her face wasn't right for bangs. Every time she leaned over to bite into her overstuffed sub, her coat collar would poke into her cheeks, making it difficult to eat. Her coat was too stiff. She didn't care.
The man on my right was embarrassed to be eating in his car. He hurried through his microwaveable pre-packaged gas station hamburger and his fountain Coke. He kept his focus on his lunch, only shifting his eyes up occassionally between bites. The hamburger seemed too small for him, like he should be eating more.
It's strange to eat lunch in your car with people around you are doing the same. Part of me wanted to invite them into my car so we didn't have to eat alone. But most of me knew that was silly. Why did we all choose to eat in our cars instead of inside? What will we do when it gets too cold to eat outside? Will we leave our cars running while we eat and turn the heat on? Or maybe we'll all move inside and eat in the busy retaurant where nobody shares a table.
I miss the comraderie of lunchtime in school. When all my friends and I sat together and had half an hour to solidify our friendships. In high school there was a group of us who all sat at the same table everyday. Without speaking, we each had our designated seats; they rarely varied. One year there was a nearby table of freshmen boys that we flirted with. We were a couple years older and assumed they loved the attention. I think we were right.
I rarely ate lunch. Mostly it was a money thing---it was a weird time for my family. But sometimes I'd find that I had a couple dollars to splurge. If I was hungry, I'd usually buy a mini round pepperoni pizza from the regular lunch line. The square pizza was no good and usually had waxy cheese and crumbled sausage. But the round pizzas were appropriately greasy and tasty, just enough to fill me up. If I wanted something small, I'd go to the snack counter and buy a chocolate malt. Only it wasn't a malt at all. It was chocolate soft-serve ice cream in a small styrofoam cup. But they called it a malt. I loved them anyway. Mini frozen pizzas and chocolate soft-serve ice cream still remind me of high school lunches.
We usually spent the whole lunch period talking. We didn't shoot hoops in the gym or hang out in the nearby halls like some people did. Instead we laughed or argued or made plans. Or called boys over to flirt with them. If we had boyfriends, we never sat with them at lunch. Maybe we'd visit them occassionally to say hi, make our presence known in their circle of friends, but we always sat together, my friends and I. I didn't give it due credit then, but lunchtime was fun. It wasn't so much about eating as it was about friends. I miss that.
Now I too often sit in my car or alone at a table for lunch and wish the people around me where my friends.
The man on my right was embarrassed to be eating in his car. He hurried through his microwaveable pre-packaged gas station hamburger and his fountain Coke. He kept his focus on his lunch, only shifting his eyes up occassionally between bites. The hamburger seemed too small for him, like he should be eating more.
It's strange to eat lunch in your car with people around you are doing the same. Part of me wanted to invite them into my car so we didn't have to eat alone. But most of me knew that was silly. Why did we all choose to eat in our cars instead of inside? What will we do when it gets too cold to eat outside? Will we leave our cars running while we eat and turn the heat on? Or maybe we'll all move inside and eat in the busy retaurant where nobody shares a table.
I miss the comraderie of lunchtime in school. When all my friends and I sat together and had half an hour to solidify our friendships. In high school there was a group of us who all sat at the same table everyday. Without speaking, we each had our designated seats; they rarely varied. One year there was a nearby table of freshmen boys that we flirted with. We were a couple years older and assumed they loved the attention. I think we were right.
I rarely ate lunch. Mostly it was a money thing---it was a weird time for my family. But sometimes I'd find that I had a couple dollars to splurge. If I was hungry, I'd usually buy a mini round pepperoni pizza from the regular lunch line. The square pizza was no good and usually had waxy cheese and crumbled sausage. But the round pizzas were appropriately greasy and tasty, just enough to fill me up. If I wanted something small, I'd go to the snack counter and buy a chocolate malt. Only it wasn't a malt at all. It was chocolate soft-serve ice cream in a small styrofoam cup. But they called it a malt. I loved them anyway. Mini frozen pizzas and chocolate soft-serve ice cream still remind me of high school lunches.
We usually spent the whole lunch period talking. We didn't shoot hoops in the gym or hang out in the nearby halls like some people did. Instead we laughed or argued or made plans. Or called boys over to flirt with them. If we had boyfriends, we never sat with them at lunch. Maybe we'd visit them occassionally to say hi, make our presence known in their circle of friends, but we always sat together, my friends and I. I didn't give it due credit then, but lunchtime was fun. It wasn't so much about eating as it was about friends. I miss that.
Now I too often sit in my car or alone at a table for lunch and wish the people around me where my friends.
in Friends
Friends
Reader Comments (7)
This made me really think about middle school, and I haven't thought about middle school for a really long time.
And actually, I forgot that there was "lunch period" all the way up through high school. I guess it's something that's left behind in college without much thought or consideration.
I miss being able to "solidify our friendships" in half-hour increments over a daily serving of pizza and ice cream. My God.
My high school lunches were made up of the following steps:
- Wait in long, slow line for nasty food
- Sit with friends, talk and laugh about how nasty food is
- Get up and go stand somewhere that we can make fun of people and the school (without them knowing it, of course.) Maybe not make fun of so much, but just poke fun at anything and everything and try to get ourselves to laugh.
or in senior year it was
- Go to Taco Bell, Burger King or McDonalds, sit in car and feel so totally cool that you're able to leave
Lunch was always the fun break in between class. No matter how bad class was, you always had your friends at lunch to laugh with.
I just imagine a concaved-cheek Doahleigh trying to suck a soft-serve through a straw! Dahahaha!
Man, this made me think of high school lunches again and how amazing it was that you could purchase an entire (albeit gross) meal for less than $2. Oooh, those were the days. Although when I got a car, I usually skipped lunch and opted for Taco Bell.
Now I spend my lunches at my desk on the internet to catch up on blogs and to pretend shop online.
This brought back memories. I even remember what one of my h.s. friends ate every day for lunch (Suzy Qs and 7-up; she weighed about 85 lbs).
I totally think you should invite the other car eaters over. Just to see what happens. My husband and I once had a fabulous dinner with total strangers because we could get a table for 4, but waiting for tables for 2 was taking forever and they wouldn't seat just 2 at a 4-top.
solitary lunches can sometimes be a bit depressing but usually when i take one it is because i want to be alone, to decompress, to unwind the worlds of others and spend some time with me :-)