The other
day I was sitting at Einstein Brother’s Bagels having a quick breakfast before
my doctor’s appointment and I noticed a mother and son duo that piqued my
interest. At first glance, they appeared to be a run-of-the-mill Hispanic mother in her early 30s with a son around 13. I only
noticed them because the son had walked away from the counter where his mother
was ordering to peruse the drink options.
When they were apparently out of the bagel he wanted, they had the
conversation of choosing a new bagel flavor, while yelling at each other across
the restaurant, neither of them feeling the need to walk closer to the
other. They fortuitously sat at the
table next to mine, which allowed me to literally transcribe their
conversation.
Once they
got their food, the son began talking and his side of the conversation was so
much like a bad reality show that I surreptitiously looked around for a camera
crew.
Son: “Are
you tired?”
Mother:
“Yeah.”
“Is it
because you’re worried about your brother?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you
worried he might not have changed like he said?
That your love for him will only hurt you again? That your belief in him is not helping him?
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m
worried about you. You don’t enough
sleep and then you get clumsy and we both know how Dad gets when you get
clumsy. How he gets angry at you and it
makes you sad and then you don’t get enough sleep.”
“Yeah.”
They stop
talking for a few minutes so the son can take a breath and eat, and I find
myself staring at his food trying to figure out what it is. Like any narrator worth his salt, he
describes his custom order which is a smoked salmon and cream cheese on a
chocolate chip bagel with BBQ chips as an additional layer.
Son: “You’d
think those flavors wouldn’t work together but they do. You get your salty and you get your sweet.”
Mother:
“Yeah?”
“Definitely. I’ve tried different ones. Pretzel was too salty. Pumpkin was the best, but they didn’t have
it, which was what you told me earlier when I was looking at the drinks. Remember, I had to find out what drinks there
were to make sure they had something that you liked because I wanted you to
enjoy your meal. Our meal. Our time together. I really do enjoy our time together.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you
worry when I’m not around? When I’m gone
to school? Do you worry about me like grandma? Here’s a text from grandma. Let’s read it together.”
At this
point, I realized I was going to be late for my appointment, so I had to leave
them behind. I don’t know if this young
man thinks that’s how people talk to each other because he thinks reality TV is
actual reality or he was pretending that he was on a show in case he ever gets
cast on a reality show or if it was actually a show and the cameraman was
really great at camouflaging himself.
Either way, if you see me on TV at some point, and I appear to be
furiously writing in my notebook, you can rest assured that I am writing down
everything the people next to me are saying.
I’ve got to practice just in case I get my own reality show.
Can I get an Amen, y'all?
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