Went to the Ear Bar today to meet N. for lunch. As I waited for him I observed the others at tables in the front room. Three men in shirts and ties were seated nearby. The waitress recited a list of soft drinks to one of them: “... apple juice, orange juice, water?” I heard her say. She was evidently at the tail end of a very unappealing speech.
“No, no,” the man responded. “Just water, please.”
“Get a drink,” one of his companions suggested.
“No! No. Unless someone else wants tequila. Ha ha!”
The man seated to his left, portly, in his mid-thirties, said in a serious tone, “Tequila on the rocks can be very, very nice.”
There followed some indistinct banter about alcohol.
“Don’t talk to me, I haven’t had a drink in three months,” the portly one said.
“Why not?” asked the older man across from him.
“Trying to lose weight,” he replied.
Which led me to wonder: Who are people? What the hell are they doing? And why?