Scene from a Chinese Buffet

I had meant to post this a while back, but never got around to completing it.

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I went to lunch the other day with Finicky. We visited one of the haunts from our younger days, a local Chinese buffet. You remember the younger days? The days when you could consume a none too healthy lunch, not fall asleep at your desk and then some how not gain weight from the experience.

We don't go too often anymore. It is a large restaurant. It is the end cap of strip mall in an older part of town whose best days are in the past. It is always busy. When you walk in, with machine like precision, the expressionless man asks "Two?" without so much as a word of greeting, but then it would slow down the process of moving the seemingly endless line of grazers from the door to tables. His next question, "Drink?" is asked without making eye contact, as he scrawls our responses on a ticket pad and then hastily rips it off and sets it down on the table, and he is gone.

Without ever sitting down, we join the other grazers in line. It is amazing to watch the clientele, most of whom are regulars, searching the steam tables as if they are going to find something that was not here the last 40 times they visited.

The grazers fall into a few distinct categories:

 - The Cattle: rude, but these are large, lumbering people who barely fit into the booths and are wrecking the profits for the owner. They often know what they want and pile it on high so as to make fewer trips. Sometimes they take plates two at a time.See also John Pinnette.

- The Children: Usually accompanied by an adult, they peer over the top, dragging their plates, often losing some food bits here or there. Sweet. Innocent.

- The lunch bunch: These folks are excited. Lunch is the highlight of the day, and they are more rushed to get their grub. They also talk over lunch, not always heard at the other tables.

- The Picky Eater: Generally, but not always female, looking for dishes that might be healthier than others. Looks at the sushi cautiously. Shakes head at the salad offerings and the lack of oil and vinegar for a dressing.

- The Laborers: These are the folks that work outside. Plates are usually piled high. Rushed for time. Need lots of calories to get back out and build/fix/do whatever they do to keep things running.

I am sure there are other groups that I have missed, and others might have different categories.

I enjoy eating there, but my pants don't fit so loosely that I can do it often.