Location! Location! Location!

Jennifer:

Photo courtesy of restaurant-publicity.com



“Will the table in the middle of the room be okay?”

“You don’t have anything else?”

“Well, we do, but it would be at least an hour wait.”

“That’s okay. We’ll take the one you have open."

The look was unmistakable. They weren’t trying to conceal their thoughts, not even for the trifling reason of maintaining social etiquette.  The older of the two leaned forward to get a good look at what she thought she saw walk in. She leaned back. The two whispered for a few seconds. The other turned completely around, eyes wide open. I began to twitch. She turned back around and the chitchatting resumed. The older leaned forward yet again. I felt the heat shoot up into my face. The other turned around. Breathe. I need to breathe. They began to look more and more irritated. Do I ask them if there is something wrong? Maybe I can help them understand something? I fought the urge to do so. They continued to watch the show with their perturbed faces for another few minutes and then got bored and returned to their meals.

I laughed when I wrote “show”. That’s the best part! There was NO show! We had just sat down like “normal” people. I hate to blame it all on the location, but that was definitely my immediate thought. We were in my neighborhood on the South Shore of Staten Island. There’s a particular way women should look over there, you know. I seemed to fit the part perfectly that night. However, it was very clear that the person I was there with did not. She possessed a much less feminine look than the locals could probably accept me sitting with. Or possibly I didn’t possess the right look to be out to dinner with her?

No worries! All of their questions were answered when the waiter brought the toaster oven over to the table. It’s been confirmed. She was recruiting.