Pull Up an Egg Crate

It was 11pm. And, there I was hitting up the corner Korean market after work. I know the guy there. We smile at each other. I don't know his name. He doesn't know mine. And yet, he knows the span of my late-night cravings better than my last boyfriend would. A box of mashed potatoes. A can of halved peaches. Watermelon. Pringles. Ice Cream. Corn on the cob. More Pringles.

Tonight, I wanted Ben & Jerry's. Ever since I had seen the words in a story I was editing at work, I had been envisioning digging the largest spoon that I own into a cool carton of B&J. Only after I had let it sit out on the counter just long enough to get mushy and melty, that is.

I knew what I wanted. I knew where it was (freezer at the far left).

But, en route to my sweet destination, I nearly toppled onto a ... dinner table.

It was a sight. It struck me. It stopped me mid-step.

Here were these three men, workers there at the market, having dinner together, at the foot of the crackers aisle.

Each man hunched over, each sat on an egg crate. There was plenty of steamed broccoli and chicken to go around. Bowls teeming with food sat on a spare crate, the dinner table, at the center of the circle the men had formed.

They didn't gab. They were silent, just eating the food in front of them without really looking at each other. They were somehow serious. Weren't they dying to talk to one another, I wondered? About anything -- about everything? But, no, they passed bowls, piled plates high, lifted and lowered chopsticks....smack-dab in the middle of the market.

There was something in it sacred. It seemed as if I had stumbled, unbeknownst, into a temple, clacking my pointy high heels as I made a bee line for the ice cream aisle.

I wondered if this is how men bond. They sit together and they eat. It looked fraternal. There was a sense of solidarity in the circle formation. I mean, they could have eaten in separate corners if they had really wanted to.

So, I got some corn to go with the ice cream. Seemed wholesome. And the scene had looked somehow wholesome.

Feast away, brothers. It's fine by me if you don't want to talk. I like the quiet calm, too, sometimes.

It's good to be reminded that it's not so much the where, as much as it is the with whom.

YGAT