Let's Get Something to Eat

She had made and repeated the fearless moral inventory of herself as an important part of her 12-step program. It had not been as difficult for her as some addicts find it. She had had a lot of therapy in her lifetime, spent many years seeking self-realization and was naturally quite introspective. She did not lack awareness of her many shortcomings. She mostly did not let herself off the hook for them either, working actively to correct some of them, and at least admitting to them all. That had come with age and growth. Her youth had mostly begat denial and excuses. But now she saw herself quite clearly and she was OK with most of it.

She was a wordy person which some people appreciate and some do not. She didn't care for numbers at all. Numbers were not logical to her, and she was bright enough to know that that was completely illogical. Words warred to be the first to escape her brain whether written, spoken, sung or expressed in some other media. Numbers remained more firmly lodged in the gray matter and she had to struggle to manage even their simple use. Oh, she could add, subtract, multiply and calculate square footage quite nicely. She just always had to check her work twice to make sure. It hadn't been difficult to embrace her affinity for words over numbers. Despite that, her head was a veritable treasure trove of dates of events both important and unimportant, even to those more affected by the dates than she. The plethora of dates and events she could spew was remarkable.

"I'd like to take you out for dinner on Thursday." His face was a little more animated than usual and his fairly attractive smile lit it up.

Since he was pleasant, she determined to be pleasant and put a smile on. She teased, "Well, why Thursday instead of Tuesday or Saturday?"

He became kind of odd and the smile slipped. "It's the date we met each other. It means something to me." She cringed inwardly while trying to keep her game face. "I knew that," she lied. "That's why I was funning you!" Her hands became very busy and she moved the conversation forward. "Where shall we dine?" He named a couple of large resorts, each of which has several different cafes from which to choose. "You decide and I'll be happy with it." She pondered and said she'd enjoy a good meal of Mexican food. "OK, but you'll have to tell me what to order. I don't know about Mexican food." She felt the slow burn beginning again. It wasn't going to be about his deplorable driving this time. It was going to be about food. Food was not a good thing for her at which to aim anger.

She had never seen anyone eat the way he ate. Both his food choices and his table manners were atrocious. Some days he ate nothing whatsoever and some days he ate his weight in food. Sometimes he ate at 3:00 a.m. - ice cream and really bad "artificial" fried chicken one cooks in the oven to let all the grease run out from the crispy coating in streams. He'd never heard of low fat or reduced sodium or less sugar. She was certain he never knew vegetables came in any form other than canned until she pointed out the fresh and frozen varieties. He wanted white gravy on everything, just like his mother made for him.

By far, the bananas were the worst. She had never seen anyone consume 5 bananas in an hour. And there was something about the banana consumption that carried her from simple revulsion to real anger. She wasn't certain why she landed on anger. Perhaps it actually did start with disgust and escalated, as she longed to knock him in the head with a stick, to anger. His banana dance did not vary. Perhaps it was sacred to him. He first peeled the fruit entirely and then fist-gripped the naked banana like a child or a monkey would handle it, eating from both ends, with gusto and sound effects.

She had tried, rather half-heartedly and early on, to mine his food preferences so she could occasionally make them a meal. She found it hard going. Then she found it made her angry. He had lived his entire life in the southwest but he didn't know about Mexican food. She'd laughed at that! "What? You've never tried a taco?" He said he hadn't. She asked about lasagna, as she enjoyed making that. He'd never had that either. She didn't laugh. The man was more than 60 years old. In a part of the country where Mexican food reigns and has for decades, he's never sampled a taco? He's never tried lasagna at a restaurant or at someone's home or at a potluck meal at work? Never? Or did he simply open his face, insert food, never actually tasting it, never weighing whether he enjoyed it or not, never wondering if he might try it again sometime?

It occurred to her why he made her angry. It didn't come in a flash of brilliance. She'd had to sneak up on it, but it was gradually revealed. He went through life with blinders on all of his senses. Because he experienced so little of life, he had few memories, no stories. He had no texture. It seemed to her he simply ambled through the world, neither looking at anything, tasting or smelling. He paid no attention to other human beings, so he had never become socialized. He didn't know what 22-year-olds had already learned by simply asking or paying attention. He was singularly incurious, whereas she was curious about everything.

It seemed to her that it had finally happened. She had finally met a man to whom she would give utterly nothing of herself and he would find that acceptable. He might offer every fiber of himself to her, but she was not interested in the least. It had been her experience there was usually some accord about whether to continue casual relationships or end them. Mostly, the parties viewed the interaction similarly. That wasn't going to happen this time. For he was having the time of his life and she felt like she was losing ground. Her mistake was the same tired one: submit and resent. And now she'd allowed a situation to develop.

Some said she was a bit of a bitch. He was the salt of the earth. He had become sufficiently comfortable to walk up behind her as she typed personal e-mails, reading from the screen. She'd heard his hand on the doorknob a time or two when she hadn't quite finished getting dressed. She had become sufficiently uncomfortable to fantasize about running - literally, physically - down the street until she could not be seen. But, no. Running away like a child wouldn't resolve anything. Perhaps he'd even follow behind in his red muscle machine and find her! No, this time she'd have to stay and work to take back her sense of peace and self and self-respect.