An Appetite Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

When you lose something it can be unsettling if it has monetary value, and more so if it holds sentimental worth. Sometimes it cannot be replaced, like that square foil packet that was in your wallet - just in case it was needed at a moments notice, especially when there was a telephone number taped to it.
....Licenses, credit cards, and yes phone numbers can be replaced, but with a whole lot of hassle. Sometimes simple pieces of paper are a real pain to lose, like the ones with account numbers, pin numbers, birthdays and anniversaries, and other numbers you can never remember.

Try losing you appetite at lunch time! Now there is a traumatic loss if ever there was one! You've been clock-watching all morning while visions of cheeseburgers and steak bombs danced in your head. When that last agonizing click of the second hand finally heralds noon, you are only one of several dozen lemmings streaming to fine eateries, greasy spoons and hot dog carts around town.

I had been craving a large cheese steak with pepperoni and bacon all morning. I didn't need to know where I was going, the aroma of grease and meat sizzling on a grill was wafting a trail to my flaring nostrils. During that drive I was Pavlov's dog.

I was whistling the theme to "The Bridge On The River Kwai" as I marched from the parking lot to the "Charcoal Pit." That was one of several themes song I tend to use when I am on-the-prowl for food.
Sometimes I use "Tijuana Taxi," a rather stirring rendition I might add. I scrapped "Stairway To Heaven" recently because it doesn't tend to lend itself to whistling at all.

An appetite is a terrible thing to waste! The door hadn't yet closed behind me when my eyes were besieged by a patron sitting at a table near the front of the establishment. His back was to me as I entered, but it was his backside that affronted me. The spectacle of an overweight tradesman, he being a painter, sporting seven or more inches of butt crack was not conducive to my mission. The panoramic view of him as I walked by was no less appetizing. With deft skill that would be comparable to a Sword Swallower, he was force feeding a large tuna submarine sandwich down his throat. Nearly undetectable, the tuna which stayed behind on his chin, sweatshirt and lap blended in with the multicolored spots of paint. I cringed when he unceremoniously plucked a bit of tuna out his exposed navel. Was that a bit of green pepper or lint that joined the tuna against his tongue?

Disengaging my eyes from "Jaba the Hut," I proceeded to the counter. Alas, my desire for the cheese steak had evaporated. It was etched in stone too, that I would not be ordering tuna. Before my eyes could be focused on the menu board, they were once again assaulted. This time it was a woman. I won't go so far as to say she was fat, but her friends called her April, May and June. She had not one, but two cheeseburger club sandwiches on the tray in front of her. Those sandwiches never stood a chance! It was not the speed with which she "Hoovered" them off the plate, it was the lettuce left hanging from each corner of her mouth that forced me to pick up my pace to get past her. Why I glanced back, I'll never know. Rather than use adjectives, but only with vivid visual references, could I ever hope to describe the Great Continental Divide or the Grand Canyon to someone who had never seen them. Then, and only then, would you realize the scale of the butt crack she was exposing.

When I finally reached the counter, I ordered two slices of pizza to go. My lunch plans had diverged on a path I didn't really want to take. It had become urgent that I order something fast to put together, fast to pay for and fast to grab and fast to send me on my way.

The pizza slices in hand, I was pushing the door open when I heard a man call out to the short-order cook, "Hey Mario. You think I could get another one of those large tuna subs?"

An appetite is a terrible thing to waste.....

No.423