I always enjoy eating lunch at a well-known coffee/bagel/sandwich/soup place that starts with a P. Why? The one I tend to go to is in a high-class area and is often populated by “ladies who lunch.” I’m amazed to see a group of them schlepping trays that would indicate they intended, at one time, to eat healthy, but after checking their biological clocks, said ‘screw it. I’m gonna eat as if I was about to walk the Green Mile.” For instance, on this day the very well dressed dowager was decked out in a faultless red ensemble including hat, jacket, skirt and rouge. On her tray, in escalating order of death wish were: cup of water, coffee, garden salad, roast beef sandwich, potato chips, and caramel-nut danish roughly the size of a mastodon’s head.

One of her companions chose a plaid outfit and covered her eczema breeding grounds with a magnificent pair of what looked like boots made of either ostrich or the upholstery from the back seat of a late-model Bentley, which she resembled in proportion and stance. On her tray was the largest cup of soda available and a straw too tall to fit comfortably in her mouth, which cause her first sip to be accomplished by her right nostril. The reservoir-sized soft drink served to swill down the tank of tuna stuffed into a baguette that resembled a torpedo that might have been fired from the Bismark. While she eschewed the chips, she could not resist the cinnamon raisin bagel that could have very well been used as a target for a blind archer.

Indeed, we felt totally inadequate slurping our relatively modest soups in bread bowls accompanied by cups of water, which incidentally, are free. Alas, we finished our lunch before we could see if the dining dowagers survived ingesting the loads on their individual feed lots, although I may have heard the faint call for a clean-up crew as we exited.