Skip to primary content

Chickpeas | Oct 29 2005

In the restaurant, just before we ate, I divided myself into two people, one of whom, the one I thought of as me, took the table behind us. You didn’t realize this, or didn’t seem to. You were upset about the service. Evidently one of the dishes was wrong. You explained this to the waiter who insisted the dish was what you ordered. There was some discussion about chickpeas, which I couldn’t make out from where I sat. Then the waiter left, leaving the wrong dish on the table. Because of this it wasn’t clear to you if he was going to bring the correct dish. I said he was, but you weren’t so sure. While we shared the other dish—Chicken Tikki, I believe—I compared the situation with the waiter to something that sometimes happens between us. I couldn’t quite follow what I was saying because it was loud in the restaurant and because I didn’t like the way I sounded (you know how that is). Still, I believe I was talking about the problem of how to accept someone when you don’t like how that person is, or rather some aspect of that person. I suppose I meant you, because you cried a little, or so it seemed by the way your shoulders shook. Then the waiter brought another dish, presumably the one you originally ordered, the one with chickpeas, and we ate for a time in silence.