“Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.”
– Ruth Reichl
I’m frugal to a fault at times.
I get this from my father
who wore a hand-me-down
photographer’s shooting vest
he got from my husband to
All-You-Can-Eat Chinese restaurants.
At his apartment he lined the eight pockets with Zip-lock plastic bags.
At the restaurant he loaded his plate with more egg rolls and
peel-and-eat-shrimp
than he could eat.
Over the course of his meal he stuffed
the extra food into his plastic lined pockets when no one was looking.
“Gotta get your money’s worth,” he said.
At a Christmas party held in the lobby of my apartment building in Marin County, California, an elderly woman sat next to me.
She was eating as much of the free
hors d’oeuvres as she could. “This prosciutto is so good. I wish I had thought to bring a plastic bag,” she said.
I told her how my father lined his
photographer’s vest
with Zip-lock bags.
Her eyes opened wide.
“Is he single?”
Yes.
“Does he live in California?”
No, Florida.
She smacked her lips just like my father.
“That’s too bad, he sounds like my kinda guy.”
