Excessive Food Court Ettiquette

Today I accompanied my sister and mother to a local shopping centre in order to escape my university duties. It was a dull way to procrastinate, nevertheless it was a change of scenery.

A change of scenery that I did not want, though, when it came to sitting in the food court to rest a little and to refill our energy levels with bad tasting falafel and overheated burnt pizza slices, washed down with bottles of icy cold water. I looked around at the varied amounts of people and then decided to focus my gaze on the family seated in front of me and how they behaved, in particular the father.

The father looked middle aged, in his forties. He was a little too thin, and lanky even though he did not appear to be too tall, and wore a faded tan coloured leather jacket along with jeans. His hair consisted of short, thin black curls that shone more than the hair of women in Pantene advertisements. His face was so thin that one could make our his skull. When he chewed his food, he chewed it until it became dust in his mouth and then after he swallowed, he would stick his tongue through the curves and contours of all his teeth so as to ensure no crumbs were left behind. But that was not the aspect that annoyed me about him, surprisingly. Not his strange tan leather jacket nor his constant teeth cleaning.

It was, rather, the way he compulsively wiped his five o'clock shadow after each bite. He wiped his mouth and its surroundings so many times that his face almost resembled the shine of a newly polished bowling ball. It fascinated me how this man religiously wiped at nothing as though the nearest ketchup company erupted and all of its liquids splattered on his face. He would not stop. And each time he wiped, he would stare out into the distance of the feeding savages surrounding him at the same focal point each time, and his stare would not halt until he felt as though his face was cleaner than it was when he took that bite.

He repeated this process until his entire meal was finished. I am surprised the skin around his mouth is still intact. I stared down at my pizza, which was getting colder at that stage, and I did not want to eat unless I too had a serviette in my hand at the demand of my yearning-to-remain-clean face. It was funny seeing the contrast around this man, people eating with their hands and sucking their fingers clean and wiping leftover sauce and crumbs on their sleeves and eating on. 

I appreciate this man's desire to remain hygienic, and his desire to eat neatly in the presence of others but I do not appreciate the way his compulsiveness to remain tidy brushed onto me. Now I too must acquire a pile of serviettes higher than the height of my food so as to ensure that I do not let anybody in the public domain that is the food court catch me with a piece of crumb on my face. Oh, the humility.

Pumpkin Soup

There is nothing better to come home to in the cold after a long day of overworking your already exhausted body than coming home to a nice, warm bowl of fresh pumpkin soup. Not the packet type that you find in your supermarket, but the kind made from scratch by your mother, in the very hearth of your home.

Pumpkin soup is the most delicious type of its kind. It is just divine, its creamy texture separates in your mouth, spreading all over each tastebud, blanketing them, and then gathers together in the back of your throat where it slides down your oesophagus like a lump of heaven, gliding through to your stomach where it rests like a tired toddler, calmly and sweetly. Best eaten with a deep spoon from a round bowl, it enhances life after each spoonful, no matter the situation of the person consuming it. It evens out all thoughts and places the consumer in a haze of serenity, whereby no troubles can ever be thought of, until the soup is finished.

I just came home to pumpkin soup in all its glory, having been cooked by my mother, a professional chef who is not professionally trained according to contemporary society, rather she has inherited ounces of tradition and culture from every unimaginable corner of life and has combined them into varied recipes, allowing the consumer to feel from different parts of the world, through their hunger. Despite having tutored a child for four consecutive hours, and having to come home to a crowded house, crowded with the loud sound of the football blaring on the television and having to hear a commentary louder than my breathing about semi-nude men chasing a piece of rubber on a field, and despite making a nice toast only to have it fall apart and get thrown away, I am now soothed because I am consuming my pumpkin soup.

I am nearing the end of it, though, and when I reach the end I know that all my anger from the instances listed above will crawl back into my mind to replace the warm gap that the thoughts of the pumpkin soup had left behind, and I will be infuriated again. Life is simply bettered with pumpkin soup, especially if you have mild anger issues. It simply dispels them. Looking down at every spoonful, I notice that it is so flavoursome that it looks as though it has pores, just like if it were a living, breathing, being thing. It fascinates me so much so I almost cry every time I have to part with the vision of it in order to consume that spoonful. I am always left only on the verge of tears though because soon enough I have another spoonful to admire.

Maybe I am too obsessive about this perfect concoction, but one thing is for certain, my mother knows how to cook foods that transport me to places I will never actually experience. This is why I chose tonight, too, to come home to this soup rather than bring home a brown paper bag filled with fast foods that have been sitting around in a machine all day, waiting for some radiation from fast powerful microwaves to roast them enough to look appealing for both their low price and their low-paying customers. I admit, okay, I am obsessive over my mother's food. I will challenge you, though, I challenge you to come over one day and consume some of my mother's food, even her pumpkin soup, and dare to tell me any different. 

That challenge is real, I am not writing it for the sake of concluding this essay. I mean it. Come and try her food. Chances are, you can fit through the door on your way in but you will never fit on your way out.

He Who Stands Must Obey Demands

He who stands must obey the demands of others placed upon him when he has stood. In the act of defying gravity and raising to his feet, straightening both his knees and his posture, he is automatically placed in the position to serve those who remain slumped in the comfort of the leather sofa.

He must choose willingly, almost voluntarily to accommodate those who are seated; for if he is now standing is in the position of those who are sitting, then those who are standing, who used to be sitting, must also serve he who was standing but is now sitting, for he who was standing is now seated, and those who were seated but are standing have taken the willing action of serving he who used to be standing. If he who stands breaks this chain, then he who stands must accommodate both himself and others when he is both sitting or standing, for he would have broken the serving chain that had for years worked well, without a glitch.

He who stands must obey demands and cease all sexist thoughts, for she who sits has the ability to remain seated and control he who stands into bringing she who sits whatever it is that she pleases at the time of her seating. That brief hint of sexism is thus depleted, until she who is seated stands, in which case he who stands quickly runs to the sofa so that the brief instance of sexism is restored and she who now stands must serve he who now sits. 

There is a rule to this moment, being that he who stands cannot disobey the wishes of those who are seated, ignore them, and just sit down again. It is a wrongdoing and not only does he who stands break the everlasting chain of serving those seated, but he also halts the regulation of good karma brought on towards him from those around him. This act, to serve those seated, knights he who stands with idolising, with gratitude and delight, and when that act is broken it becomes cursed, he who stands and sits without serving is then shunned from most friendly gatherings if he who stands and sits without serving dares to break this flow. 

He who stands is a momentary butler, a butler of many years experience and a lack of exhaustion, a butler thriving on meeting the needs of others, a butler striving with excellence every time it is that he does so, not at one time coming short of the need of any of those seated. He who stands, the butler, must go about his directions with pleasant haste, haste that displays gracious movement, movement that shows no evident sign of lack of enthusiasm, movement that serves those who are waiting to be served at the right possible pace and speed, and with the most accurate result of what it is that those who are seated are asking for. 

The delivery of the items or foods that those who are seated ask for must be flawlessly done by he who stands, for obeying demands ensures the happiness of those who are seated and obeying demands flawlessly ensures an additional level of happiness to those who are seated that guarantee the return of positive delivery from those who were seated and now are standing when he who was standing and is now seated asks for the delivery of his preferred items or foods. 

When you are he who is standing, take too the role rather than just the action. Make the role your action too, and serve those who are seated because when the time comes and you are too comfortably seated, you would prefer it that someone obeys your demands. To have your needs met, meet the needs of others, too.