The
booths at this Whataburger are just ergonomic fiberglass; no padding, no
fabric. I had had an upset stomach all
day, which was probably a direct result of the large volume of broccoli and egg
nod I had consumed over the last three days, and my stomach was gurgling. So, after they had brought our food and my
wife had started to unwrap it, I took a moment to expel some of the gas that
was uncomfortably expanding inside me.
As
always, I had hoped to whiff it out like a ninja in the night. What I got instead was a very loud, very audible
tuba note that was only enhanced by the naked fiberglass I was sitting on. At first I was hoping that the noisy din of
conversation in the restaurant had covered up the vulgar noise…that was until I
saw my wife’s face. Her eyebrows were
raised in question, her mouth was open in surprise, and her eyes were looking
at me like I had just committed the greatest atrocity of man. I also noticed that the conversation of the
family of six in the booth behind me had mysteriously stopped.
It
was at this moment, that I was struck with a thought. The booth I was sitting on was one of those
double booths, where one seat faces one table and the other seat faces the
other table. It was made even worse by
the fact that the booth at the table behind me was actually a semi-circle of
one solid piece of fiberglass. So, I was
literally connected to the entire family.
And I started to imagine that they had actually felt the vibrations in
addition to hearing it. An image of all
six people of varying ages wrinkling their noses and casting me disgusted looks
ran through my head, and I lost it.
I
started to smile, then chuckle, then full on laugh. If I was hoping to cover my guilt before, it
was lost when I was laughing so hard that I was turning red and crying into my
French fries. The more I thought about the
absurdity of the situation and how the fiberglass booth had betrayed me, the
harder I laughed. My wife just continued
to look at me like I had lost my mind.
Whether
because they were done eating or because they were so appalled by this
behavior, the family behind me left soon afterwards. This only sent me into another fit of
laughing, thinking that I had actually run an entire family off with that
single, audible oops. Nobody else seemed
to have noticed, and I was eventually able to calm down enough to eat my lunch.
