Staring While Eating

I saw her again today. The pattern remained the same. This is not a YOUNG woman. But from behind, I started looking at her because, you know, she had a thin and attractive figure. But that is not what was interesting.

What was INTERESTING was that she brought to her table an enormous amount of food. My thought was that she had ordered for a friend, which was confirmed when she placed her tray on the table and sat down: she stared out the window for a while and did not move. But then the eating started. First she started with a large bowl of soup, not a cup, a bowl. Broke both packages of crackers into the soup too... When that was about half done, she moved on to the salad. It was only the garden salad with no toppings, but it was the big salad. Back to the soup. Some more salad.

She paused.

Here is where I thought the friend would arrive. No. She moved into the entree: meatloaf. Smothered in a reddish sauce with a side of rice... there were two different servings of bread (one for the salad, and one for the entree). She broke into both of them... with butter. More soup, some salad, meatloaf, rice, bread... kind of like a dance. I got up to leave, and glanced at her tray. Almost clean.

Today, I thought perhaps she was just very hungry last time. But when she turned around with her tray, it was almost the same meal.... then she went back for her silver and napkin.  And a plate of cake.