Monday, November 23, 2009

What's for Lunch?/ Que hay para comer?

In the comments section below, please share your lunch experience. Here's mine.

I dispatched a last customer, clocked out, grabbed my coat and my bag and took the escalator two steps at a time to the ground floor. I followed a man in a suit out the revolving door and was out on the street, free at last. A fine mist was falling, but I let it wet my hair unrestricted by the umbrella I left in my bag. Instead I opened a brown paper sack and groped around for tortilla chips and stuffed them in my mouth as I made my way to the corner of 86th and Lexington and then crossed and almost continued down Lexington. I'd made the same mistake a few times before so I turned right back around and returned to 86th and Lexington and then crossed Lexington and continued on 86th past Park and Madison before reaching 5th Avenue and Central Park. By that time I'd finished all the tortilla chips in my lunch sack and had half eaten a Crispin apple. At a children's park a block from the Metropolitan Museum of Art I stopped and looked at the benches. They were speckled with droplets, but not soaking wet. I pulled the cardboard bottom out of my bag, positioned it on the bench and sat on it. After four and a half hours, it felt wonderful to be off my feet. I polished off the apple and chucked the core into a green trash bin. I opened up my lunch sack another time and found the prize: a sesame bagel. I contemplated using my knife and spreading some peanut butter from the container I'd brought onto the bagel. I decided against it. I sat and ate the sesame bagel in happiness, listening to the traffic and the sounds of the children in the park. I looked up at the bare branches of trees and into the dark sky. The mist was falling a little harder now. I rustled up my new umbrella, removed it from its pouch, opened it, and held it over my head. The bagel was very chewy and I wondered if I would sacrifice a tooth or at least a filling to it before I had finished. I sipped some water to wash the bagel down. When it was gone and fortunately my teeth were all still intact, I ripped open the peanut butter container and, with the knife, scooped some out and put it in my mouth. I filled my mouth with peanut butter thinking that some people would probably be repulsed upon hearing that I'd eaten plain peanut butter (freshly ground), but I rationalized the act, arguing that it would soon meet the bagel in my stomach. I put away my umbrella, rolled up my lunch sack, put the cardboard rectangle back in my bag and walked up a short ramp to the public bathroom. Afterwards, I reached into my coat pocket for dessert, a Dutch windmill cookie from my mother. I savored that cookie as I walked back on 85th and 86th, crossing 5th Avenue, Madison, Park and, finally, Lexington. At 150 E. 86th Street, I went through the revolving doors and rode the escalator downstairs back to work. Lunchtime was over.

1 comment:

  1. adventure lunch in new york city!
    well, our last lunch was much more sedate and 'merican. we sat on the couch, watching "the return of the king" (disc one) and had our turkey sandwiches (on sourdough, with cranberry sauce) and an artifically flavored, diet cola (cherry for ga, lime for me. shortly later, the sandwich was followed by three slivers of our three kinds (two types of pumpkin and mince"meat") pies.
    briando

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