Ricky'S Lunch Blog

When I was a wee boy, before I started school, there were no other kids in the neighborhood my age. Everyday my mom would stuff me into my undersized winter coat, buckle me into the back seat, and force me to go to every shopping mall on Long Island with her. In 1966, malls were at the apogee of their post-war suburban glory.

Mom was thrifty, so she would shop for hours and never, ever buy anything. This was brutal on a precocious, hyper-intelligent child like myself. You can only pull boogies out of your nose and flirt with the pretty-smelling cash register ladies for so long before your patience wanes.

However, if I behaved myself, mom would buy me a hot dog for lunch. And if was a really good boy and I didn’t smear snot all over my face, she’d buy me a Match Box car too, but that was rare because—even back then—my nose was large and hard to manage.

These days, when the Battle Ax forces me to go to the mall with her on the weekends, I always bring my Kindle. I’m content to camp-out in the asshole chair, read, and drink coffee. When I look up and see her approaching, beaming with swollen shopping bags, I immediately crave a hotdog, and I instinctively check the tip of my index finger.

Did you notice how I used the word apogee in the first paragraph? How pretentious.

“He’s in a searching place right now.”

I pretended to reach into my pocket for my keys just so I could turn around to see who had said this. It was a middle aged woman in casual attire, but she was a little too well coiffed to pull off the laid-back crunchy housewife act. Across the table, her friend’s furrowed brow conveyed both sympathy and concern.

I interpreted it to mean her old man was having an affair. I turned back to my fish tacos and Kindle. I’d put too much lime juice and hot sauce on my tacos, so with each bite, a spurt of watery orange fish juice leaked out the other end. I had to lean over the plate so as not to soil my trousers.

“He’s starting to look inside himself.”

This stopped me in mid chew, with a length of shredded cabbage hanging from my lips. It was a younger woman, no doubt, probably someone he’d met at church.

On my plate the pool was growing and now I was worried about splattering fish juice all over my oatmeal-colored cardigan. I slid the plate over a bit so the next drop would land more toward the edge. On my Kindle I was reading about the fall of the Berlin Wall, and I was just getting to the good part where Lech Walesa pretends he knows how to read.

“He’s beginning to notice himself.”

Uh-oh. Dude’s already talked to a lawyer.

I finished the last bite and wiped my hands on my napkin. I rose and inspected myself. No stains.