The Old Woman and the Pie

This past Friday my husband took the day off to spend with me to celebrate my birthday.  I originally wanted to visit a distant town that I heard had cobblestone streets lined with quaint gift and antique shops.  It was supposed to be a rainy day so I opted for a movie, dinner and evening at Barnes and Noble instead.

We arrived at the theater and bought tickets for Letters To Juliet, which I highly recommend if you're in to love stories and chick flicks!!  We had about a half hour to kill so we walked over to the Pennsylvania Dutch Market hoping for a place to sit down and get something to drink.  Luck would have it there was a little cafe inside so we sat down and after glancing at the menu decided to order a piece of pie.  Michael got coconut cream and I got fresh strawberry.

9 inch strawberry pie from Shandles

I began looking around at this place I had never been to before.  There was an elderly couple sitting to my left and up a table and the woman was facing me.  She was in my direct line of sight so everytime I looked up I saw her.  The very first thing I noticed about her was how old she looked.  Her face was quite wrinkled with a down turned mouth and pinched lips.  My first thought was that she looked angry and bitter.  She spoke quite loudly and repeated everything because her companion was obvioulsy hard of hearing.  They were the kind of things that made Michael and I look at each other and smile.  Things like her email must be broke because she hadn't got one in a week and that was just a lie!  Her tone of voice matched her angry bitter look!

The server brought us our pie and mine looked  pretty good except the crust was white like it hadn't been baked.  The strawberries were large and covered in a thick red glaze of yummy goodness.  It was the most bland disappointing piece of strawberry pie I've ever tasted!  I ate less than half of it and pushed it away watcing Michael enjoy his only okay coconut pie.  The whole time I was aware of the old woman watching me. 

I have to admit I was stealing glances at her too.  The wrinkles, angry look and bitterness in her voice made me wonder what kind of life she had lived.  What happened to her that made her come across so miserable and unhappy.  Not once did she smile.  Not even when I smiled at her.

As we got up to leave, I sensed her watching me again.  I turned around with my back to her and as I walked away I thought I heard her say, "Did you see how big that woman was?"  I wasn't sure if I heard her right and I knew she was going to repeat it, so I turned around and stepped back towards the table.  "Did you see the size of that woman?  All they did was come here to get dessert".  And just in case EVERYONE hadn't heard, she said it again even louder!  I stood there in shock as all eyes were on me.  I so badly wanted to say something but couldn't think of a thing to say. 

All I could do was stare at her and I wanted to punch her face!  I stared her down and she was squirming.  She would look to see if I was still looking and then look away, fidgeting with her hair and changing her position in the seat.  I was making her uncomfortable but it didn't compare to how uncomfortable I felt standing there.  I was angry, embarrassed and ashamed at the same time.  Even now as I write this, I feel it all over again and my hands are shaking, my heart is pounding and I want to send her false teeth flying across the room!

I'm not a petite little thing.  I'm quite a big girl and have been most of my life.  I've struggled with my weight since I was in the third grade.  This was just one more incident in a string of events that have happened since the first of the year regarding my weight.   

You're not going to believe this but on some level that I can't comprehend yet, I'm grateful for that old woman's comment.  It has forced me to admit that my situation is serious and life threatening.  It was the final push I needed to do something about it before it's too late.  I believe everything happens for a reason.  That wrinkled, bitter, angry, unhappy, miserable old woman is going to change my life!

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