Eating Alone

I once got some advice on eating alone from B-movie "Hope Floats", whose only light-at-end-of-predictable-soap-opera-tunnel was Harry Connick Jr. playing the role of a Stetson wearing carpenter... he was, umm...good with his hands...

Anyway, the trick is apparently to look mysterious. Not sketchy, or creepy, or like a cold war spy who hasn’t been told that Berlin fell, but “mysterious” in the most alluring sense. Confused? You’re in good company. Neither I nor Cher’s mother in “Moonstruck” (the always classy Olympia Dukakis) have it figured out either.

I think the truth of the matter is simple: you have to be beautiful. That way, no one wonders why you’re alone. You’re alone so that no one blocks the view as we stare and envy, as you cut tiny well-proportioned bites of lettuce and place them delicately between your collagen enhanced lips.

Fat people are alone because no one can afford to feed them.

Ugly people are alone because no one wants to ruin their own appetite.

And everyone else is alone because they fall into one of these two categories.

Obviously that’s the way it works.

However, I believe I’ve found a temporary solution to the eating-alone-dilemma:



Gauze.

It’s so easy, I wonder why others haven’t caught on?

Applied liberally to one’s head, it’s the perfect cover (4 or 5 times around should do the trick) and without saying a word, one is then able to convey the appropriate message: “I’m eating alone because I have amnesia. I can’t remember who I was supposed to meet for breakfast/lunch/dinner. Or where. Even thinking about my past is painful…ow! My head!” at this point, you may rub your forehead gently, looking slightly pained. Make sure to not overdo it, a little bit of rubbing goes a long way.

At least that’s what grandma always said.