Always Wait in the Foyer

            I had a lunch date today. It helps me to be a better mother if I get out of the house and see honest-to-God grown-ups. Really. So about once a month I am lucky enough to get together with my friend, Trish. We used to work together and while we only did that for about seven months she is a kindred spirit and we get each other. We are peas.

            Normally I get to the restaurant of choice first and I just hang out in the foyer and wait. That is my usual M.O. and it works for me. Today was no different, I got there early, however, we were meeting at a restaurant that we had never been to together and that is where a bit of my confusion came in.

            When I entered the restaurant I was greeted by the host. I told him that I was meeting someone and that I hadn’t seen her yet. He asked me to follow him and like the little sheep I am, I followed. I broke protocol and didn’t really think about it. I didn’t wait in the foyer and that was a mistake.

            As I was seated at our table I had my drink brought to me while I waited for my friend, who was used to seeing me sitting at the front door waiting for her. I played with my phone at the table and tried to not look like I was on a blind date and had been stood up. (Deviating from my standard practice was starting to make me nervous.) Then, as luck would have it, a bus full of high school kids showed up and sat at the six or seven tables across from me and I could feel their pity. Sitting alone, drinking my sad little drink, waiting for that someone who wasn’t coming. I started to sweat a little. I felt uncomfortable but tried to keep that air of confidence that I like to flaunt. I didn’t want to look even more pathetic by walking to the door and looking out at the parking lot but I felt that I would need to at some point. Perhaps I was at the wrong restaurant. I was trying to hold the map of the area in my head and think of what was on the opposite corner. Was that where I sent Trish? Probably.

            I sucked it up eventually and, with my head held high, walked to the front door to look out and hopefully see my friend in her car waiting for me to show up but that was not to be. She was sitting, in my seat, in the foyer. She knew that if I was there that I would be in the foyer like I always am when we meet for lunch. Like I had been every single time we have had lunch together. She had told the host that she was waiting for someone but she was not herded like sheep into a booth to wait for no one. She was smarter and waited in plain sight for me. So, that means that a good twenty minutes of chatter time was blown and that is not acceptable, ever. A lunch date once a month does not afford us wasting a single second, I usually talk with my mouth full just to not waste time with silence. It is that important.

            From now on, I will wait in the foyer and not be sheep.