Geography ala Grandma Hazel

I spent almost 3 hours of my day today killing time at a McDonalds in Attica, IN. (I have a very important job* that requires me, on occasion, to go somewhere, pop in, then make myself scarce for a couple hours before I re-pop. And as the library in Attica is closed on a Sunday (actually, I just assumed that it was closed because the other libraries in this particular county and a couple of surrounding counties are closed on Sundays... huh. I should check on that.))

Anyway, while at aforementioned McDonalds, the church crowd (or to be exact, two different waves of church crowds (talk about some racy clothes there - deep in the midwest, low-income city, churchy folk - yikes)) flowed through while yours truly sat and wrote reports alone at a table-for-two. When I arrived, there was already an older couple sitting across the aisle from me, on the same side of the table, facing everything that was behind me. And I hear the woman say, "They're from Asia."

And the husband said, "Mexico, I think."

And the woman replied, "Nooo, Asia. That's where China and Korea and Hong Kong and all those little island-places are."

And I listened to them debate for a couple of minutes more where Asia was and what countries were involved until I just couldn't stand it anymore and turned around to see the Asians who had started such controversy in a small, historical, river town.

And they were Latino. Which led me to wonder what they were doing in Asia...

@@@@@

I'm not really done talking about the phenomenon I witnessed today - let's recap: a city which shares a name with a dangerous prison, a church crowd, bad clothes, midwest hair, and the freakiest thing of all - the entire patonage (each wave considered separately, of course) of McDonalds knew each other well enough to stop at tables to inquire about Aunt Milly, or to switch seats thereby mixing up the mingling, to scoot a baby, still in it's highchair, across two rows of tables so as to situate it closer to grandma (?). There was even hollering (yes, there was 'hollering') across the restaurant. There was kissing goodbye and harried moms. It was all very Felliniesque and it creeped my shit out.

*On re-read, this sounds pompous - I was going for sarcastic...