Today I had seven hours of Biology class - a lecture in the morning and a lab in the afternoon. In between these two classes, there's an hour break... for lunch. During this break I walked down the hill to a local coffee shop I love and got a bowl of soup.
Now, you have to understand how great a victory this was. This coffee shop is always out of soup by the time I get there, and yet somehow today when I arrived the sign read 'Wicked Thai soup' instead of the usual 'Sold Out' that I'm used to. I snatched up my cherished bowl, shielding it from the greedy eyes of the other patrons, and took it outside to enjoy in the sunshine.
I chose a bright table-for-two directly in a particularly large patch of sun, and thoughtfully munched my soup while people watching (a past time I've always enjoyed, and find quite fulfilling).
Picture this: There are three table on the patio. One is all on it's own, off the side... probably 20 feet from the others - that's where I was sitting. The other two are quite close (maybe 6 feet apart?) and it was at those two tables I saw a peculiar sight...
First, a tiny wisp of a girl slipped into a chair at one of the tables. As far as I could tell, she was wearing 3 t-shirts and 2 skirts layered on top of one another, and yet she still was so thin I could barely see her when she turned sideways. I was afraid that with a particularly strong gust of wind, she would just flutter away into the sky, her colorful skirts whirling around her weightless body into the distance. She pulled a salad out of her bag and started nibbling at it. Now, I'm being very generous using the term 'salad'. Is there was anything besides lettuce in that container, I didn't see it. Maybe a cherry tomato or two... maybe.
Second, a woman I can only describe as 'hefty' waddled into view. Not to be insensitive, but I'm fairly sure I could have used the shirt she was wearing (identifying her as an A & W employee) as a tent... for me and several other people. She carried with her the tell-tale McDonalds bag - Brown paper emblazoned with a golden 'M'. She plopped down in her chair (at the table next to the lettuce-eater) with a thud, the thin metal legs groaning worryingly under her weight. She pulled not one, but two burgers out of the paper bag, along with two super-sized fries and and extra-large pop. Then she lit up a smoke.
I sat and watched these two ladies from afar, and found their differences so striking. There they sat, right next to each other... completely unaware of the strange pair they made. A leaf-nibbler and a fried-food-guzzler. They seemed so unalike, but the more I thought about it, the more similar they seemed - One so healthy she was killing herself, the other so unhealthy she was doing the same.
I thought about it, I smiled, and then I finished my soup.
