January 16, 2013 article

The Old Coot writes home.

By Merlin Lessler

So, here I am in Wegman’s cafeteria, perched at a table that affords me a panoramic view. It’s three thirty in the afternoon; the place is a ghost town. A few old guys are sprinkled here and there, sipping coffee and sneaking a pastry they are not allowed to have at home, loaded with cholesterol and calories, staring at newspapers or off into space. One old guy (me) is gawking around the room, jotting stuff down on scraps of paper and napkins in hopes of finding something to write home about. The lights are dim; there’s a hum from nearby kitchen fans. It’s a mesmerizing kind of drone and it’s making me sleepy. I notice two guys at two separate tables have succumbed to it, but not snoring. Not yet!

Two middle school students are off to my right doing homework. Supposedly. Their mother is grocery shopping. All they do is send text messages, watch videos and multi task to beat the band. I’m jealous; it’s taking all my concentration to jot a few notes without spilling coffee down the front of my shirt. A curious blend of aromas is wafting in from the food court: fresh pizza, roasting chickens and stir-fried oriental delights. The smells dance through the room and make my stomach growl.

A senior couple comes in; it’s dinnertime for them, 4 pm. Their plates are neatly decorated with “home” cooked food from the buffet. A worker is meandering through the room, filling napkin holders, wiping tables and mopping dried spills in preparation for the dinner crowd. Tables are realigned and chairs shoved underneath, returning a sense of order to the space.

The only highlight comes when two boys in their early teens bolt past my table with trays overloaded with pizza slices and submarine sandwiches. It seems their eyes are bigger than their stomachs, an illness that afflicts me too. Their mother looks frazzled as she pays the cashier and shakes her head in disbelief at the size of the tab. The food nearly topples from their trays as they slam them down on a table off to my right and then race to the soda dispenser to fill super size beverage containers. Ten minutes later, they’ve wolfed it all down and stand next to “mom” with their hand out as she fishes in her purse for cash so they can get more pizza, disproving my assumption about the relative size of their eyes and their stomachs.

It’s a good show, but still, I was hoping for a star performance. If only one of the old coots would do something stupid. Like, stand up so I can see that his pants are on backwards. Or, push his hat into the trash barrel when he cleans off his tray. Or, fumble in his pockets for his glasses, give up and walk out, not knowing they are pushed up on his head. Or, lean back so I can see that his shirt buttons are in the wrong holes, leaving a bunched up wad of cloth under his chin. Or, put on his wife’s coat when he gets up to leave and wonder why the sleeves don’t make it down to his wrists. Then it dawns on me, I’m the one who does those things. And those old guys scattered around the room are waiting for me to get up and put on the show. I check my socks; they match. As do my shoes. My glasses are in my pocket. My shirt seems right. Still, I don’t dare leave. I decide to outwait them. It’s no fun being an old coot stuck in a “time out” at Wegman’s.