Perception

Went out to a buffet restaurant for dinner tonight with a friend. We have known each other for ten years this month so it was kind of like an anniversary celebration. He and I met at a buffet. We were sixteen year old bus boys. Now we meet up at a buffet every couple weeks. We eat three plates of food starting with salad and going on to meat, potatoes, shrimp and finally, icecream. After the eating we walk out to the parking lot holding our guts and breathing strenously through our mouths, and after chit-chating by our cars, say good bye. We speed away.

Those coming of age years were spent inside a buffet restaurant! We were socialized in a glutton hut--grew up there. Went on dates with coffee server girls who wore pleated lap aprons and floral print skirts. Collected paychecks and then blew them on car wax and fast food. Were promoted from bus boys to dishwashers, cooks to managers.

And I wonder how I would perceive life if I were socialized somewhere else, like the Gap or a malt shop--where there weren't four hundred pound guest reeking of sweat and farts demanding more roast beef.