Dining Rituals

Do you ever wonder what it is you do that might make other people look at you and comment upon your weirdness?

I don't, because I'm not weird at all. If you look in the dictionary under "Perfectly Normal: the example from which Society's standards are established", you'd find my picture. I'm quite certain that no one talks about me behind my back, or nudges their companions and points at me. But I'm sure that I'm an exception; I'm guessing that most people have some small idiosyncrasies that occasionally make them a topic of conversation when they're out of earshot.

As all normal people do, my son and I often go to Chipotle and spend hours there discussing world politics, business strategies, and whether or not aliens with technology to travel thousands of light years would prioritize cattle dissection as the primary goal of their interplanetary science missions. The other night we were engaged in a very typical father/son discussion about which President most closely resembled Hitler, when I happened to glance at the woman across the aisle from us.

Sometimes people listen in our conversations, and I wouldn't blame them for wanting to -- we do occasionally come up with ideas and conclusions that are of great benefit to Mankind. (A couple of weeks ago, for example, we delineated the theoretical model of space/time that would end all doubt and settle the Ginger vs. Mary Ann controversy once and for all. I have contacted Stephen Hawking about it, but he hasn't yet responded.) On this occasion, though, our topic wasn't controversial; we were merely discussing common knowledge, such as how one of Hitler's first moves upon assuming office was to begin putting the country's business infrastructure under government control. (Which makes sense, especially when you consider that the word "Nazi" was derived from the word "Nationalsozialist", which was the first word in the name of his movement. But everybody knows these things.)

I happened to glance at the table across the aisle from us and noticed that the woman sitting there wasn't paying the slightest attention to the handsome men across from her. She was completely engrossed in her own complex dining ritual.

Me, I just unwrap the burrito and go at it like a pit bull on a chihuahua. There are no style points to be awarded; the point is to transfer the big honkin' thing from its tinfoil wrapper into my stomach with minimal interference from any intermediate process (such as chewing). Depending on the skill of the person who wrapped the burrito, the process can range from the optimal "not-a-single-bean-spilled" scenario to a bloody awful splatter mess that must eventually be resolved through the use of napkins and spoons. I hate using utensils; it's such a slap in the face to the Go Green movement, since they either have to be thrown away or washed, both of which have the direct result of harming baby seals and endangered snail darters. But I digress.

The woman across from us appeared to be quite normal. She didn't have the wide-eyed terrorist stare of a Raiders fan, nor the unwashed hair and sloping forehead of an Oklahoman...so I wasn't expecting her to do anything other than consume her meal and then leave. But instead she began a fascinating dining ritual that totally sidetracked our historical discussion and left Tanner and me engrossed in observation rather to the point where we completely stopped trying to solve the world's problems for the duration of the evening.

First, she folded her three napkins in a very precise and measured way. It wasn't origami, exactly, but apparently the arrangement of the folded napkins had to be perfect before the meal could begin. She had purchased a "naked" burrito, which sounds naughty...but is really just the regular ingredients thrown into a bowl rather than being wrapped in a tortilla. Saves a couple hundred calories over the traditional item, but also removes the adventure, if you ask me. (And creates the aforementioned snail darter problem.)

Once the napkins were properly arranged, she began to separate the ingredients from within the bowl, making a separate pile on the napkins for the green peppers, and then for the onions. She was very precise with each selection, and almost seemed to be inspecting each item to make sure it contained no residual taint from the food among which it had been intermingled.

I didn't think much of this, really. After all, when I was a kid, I totally hated it when I got mashed potatoes on my green beans, or when any kind of vegetable touched my bread. And if a lima bean touched anything, well, you might as well have used a firehose to spray me with liquid rat poison. So I didn't really think her veggie apartheid policy was any big deal. Still, it was fun to watch.

Tanner and I eventually resumed our conversation, but kept glancing over to see what she was doing next. We finished our meal and had moved the discussion on to the topic of software user testing, and why Microsoft doesn't seem to do any...when we noticed the slightly-more disturbing part of her ritual. On four separate occasions, the woman went to the supplies counter and filled up a small plastic dish with Tabasco sauce. Nothing wrong with that; many people enhance their meals with some additional spice. But she then proceeded to use a spoon to eat the sauce right from the little plastic bowl. She didn't sip it, either, it was full spoonfuls, gulped right down.

That's when I knew she was an alien.

We sat and chatted while these bizarre rituals continued a few mere feet away from us. Several times, I was tempted to ask her about the cattle mutilations and stuff, but my basic politeness (and fear of death rays) prevented it. But it did make me wonder how many otherwise normal-looking people have habits that would give away their true nature when dining at Chipotle. Instead of "always watch the skies", should we change our self-preservation mantra to "always watch the beans"? I don't know. Yet. But when Tanner and I come up with the answer, you'll be the first to know.

Enjoy your burritos, and have a great day!