Eating Alone...

yeah that's a gov pun...deal with it.

I walked into Carl's Jr. wearily. You'd be annoyed if you had just called your mom to pick you up and you were...alone. But I was weary...because when she said "I'll be there in fifteen," she meant thirty. I spoke slowly (stretching every syllable in "number 16" as long as i could)...slurped slowly...and sank into my seat like an invalid.

I was eating by myself...i had no real reason to be sad. I had never really seen the stigma of self-reliance (eating alone, watching movies alone, running alone.) But, even with the other eight or nine other people in the room i felt so completely lonely...

my food was gone, i must have eaten it......the vibration broke my trance. Mom was here. I walked back to Rubio's parking lot and hopped in the car, slammed the door. I saw him, with his mouth open. He asked for change, but i had dollars. I rolled down the window and pulled the handle from the outside (now a routine, our passenger door handle is broken). I guess he noticed cause after i handed him the money ("I appreciate it"), he pointed to it and i explained...he cracked a weak smile, a tiny chuckle.

I told my mom the bum laughed at me, jokingly....she concluded, "See, we're ghetto too..."