Sitting at the small table in Panera and waiting for my soup bowl and friend to arrive, I couldn’t have been more bored. While I had been doing a good amount of work,  I knew that I needed to get out and see some people. Hence how I had gotten there. Sometimes I can be completely observant and in tune with everything around me, and other times I’m completely oblivious to it. Luckily, it wasn’t one of those days. As I was waiting for my soup, which was taking forever, I noticed something a bit odd.

Across from me were three elderly women, all in young grandma range, they were jabbering away with no food on the tables. I had assumed they’d already eaten and were just into talking about what ever. Boy was I wrong. It wasn’t long before the one reached into her brown leather purse and started fiddling around. It wasn’t an odd thing to happen, so I didn’t thin much of it. She pulled out a blue tube of lipstick and set it on the table.

The woman sitting next to her did the same thing. Reaching into her blue purse, she pulled out some reading glasses and set them on the table. She straightened her crocheted sunflower vest and nodded at the third woman who sat across from her. A small packet on tissues emerged and was set in front of her.

Then all three women started to get up. Wanting to say something about them leaving their things but so intrigued with what was going on, I remained utterly silent. Five minutes later, my meal still hadn’t come. My friend had arrived but was waiting to order her lunch. The glasses, tissues and lipstick were all still sitting on the table, and I had lost complete sight of where the three women had gone. I thought they’d left.

A server came over to the table and started to clean the table closest to the window. She moved the lipstick, grabbing hold of it but set it back down when she realized the glasses were there. Stepping back, she shook her head and started to search around the room, presumably looking for whoever had left them. I was just about to get up and tell her who had left them, maybe she could get their information from the register or something, when one of the women came back.

It was the one with the crocheted vest. She nodded to the server and said it was her stuff. She sat down with a plate full of pastry and waited. Soon after, her two friends came back. Quickly, each woman grabbed their left item and stuffed it back in her respective purse. I shook my head and smiled at the man who brought my meal, staring wide-eyed with what the grandmother’s had done. I mean really, they’d just outsmarted the system at Panera and saved their seats! What a bit of something that I will always remember. Needless to say, it was a good day to be observant.

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This was written for the Creative Buzz Hop. If you would like to join in, feel free! This week is just a free write, so write on anything you want and link it up to everyone else’s. Thanks to Tamara and Michelle for hosting this amazing event each week.

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