the bigness of some people (lyn)

16 Handles is a zoo today.  I get there just as school is letting out.  The place is overrun with young kids and their nannies or mothers.  I fill my up my small cup, and find the one available seat on a very crowded wall bench.  People leave and other people come.  Soon I am sitting with no one on either side of me. 

A young family comes in.  Four of them.  Two sit on the cubes in front of the wall bench, and the other two, including the mom, try to squeeze into the space to my right.  The matriarch is clearly not going to fit unless I move, though she doesn’t ask me to.  She begins to sit down.  I slide over, or she'd be in my lap.  She ignores my gesture.  She is wearing big jewelry; she is talking loudly (at first I thought she was on a cell);  and she gestures grandly.  More than once her elbow is inches from my face.  She takes up twice the space she needs.  She is slightly overweight, but her bigness has nothing to do with pounds.

At least I don’t have to wait until the plane lands.  I finish my sorbet and leave.