My mom and my sister and I went to the mall today, something we haven’t done in a long time. And we went to Rivergate Mall even, which is where we used to shop when I was a little kid. It was the place where my sister and I would swing on the clothing racks or hide in them. It would all end with my mother swearing she would NEVER take us shopping again, only all three of us knew that was impossible and not true. Well, we were back there today and shopping makes for the hungry so we headed to the food court. We split up once there–Chinese for Amy, Subway for me–and once I secured my sub I turned around to look for my family.

I found their faces almost immediately and made my way over. But on the short trip there I noticed a woman sitting at the table for four. I approached and waited for my sister to introduce the woman sitting next to her. But she didn’t. I looked at my mother who said nothing. The woman was wearing a department store name tag that I couldn’t quite read. I found my seat and opened my sandwich.

I mentioned the Lays Light potato chips that caught my eye from behind the register. Amy informed me they were just those WOW! Olestra chips only repackaged. "WOW!," I said, "I got had by a bag of chips." I’m not very funny.

All the while the woman said nothing. And we said nothing to her. We, well mostly me, made small talk awkwardly around her. A couple of times I tried to make eye contact with her to say hello or something, but she just sat there eyes down, quietly eating her chili cheese Frito plate and baked potato. She kept pushing her spork around in her wet pile of food like it was some kind of plastic, white sailboat.

And still no one recognized that she was there. Eventually the situation was so absurd it took everything I had not laugh out loud. I kept grinning in between bites, smashing my smiles into my sandwich. Amy and I kept raising our eyebrows at each other as if to say, "We both see that there is a stranger woman sitting and eating with us, but we will not acknowledge it, we’ll just keep doing this eyebrow thing." I wanted to just bust a time out sign and ask point blank, "What the fuck is going on right now?" But I wanted to see how long we would sit there eating lunch with this random saleslady without any verbal recognition that it was happening.

I noticed Amy quickly finished her food and mom only ordered a diet Coke, so I felt rushed to finish my lunch. When I crumpled up the sandwich wrapper the three of us all stood up at once. The woman looked up from her pile of Frito pie and said, "Thanks for letting me sit with you."

Once to the trashcans I said, "Can we please now discuss what the hell just happened? Who was the woman and why did no one want to admit she was there?". Amy said when she was alone the woman asked if she could sit next to her. She didn’t want to eat by herself. I guess the lady didn’t expect my mom and I to join her.

Then it just made me sad. That someone would not want to sit alone at lunch so much that they’d rather sit silently next to a stranger. For whatever reason it tugs me. It also occured to me maybe she was trying to mack on the sister, but mom and I put a bit of a crimp in that plan. Either way it was a total Twin Peaks experience.