Food Courts

I hate food courts. If there’s a hidden benefit to online shopping and the resultant decline of shopping malls, it’s the fact that the fucking food courts are going away too.

My problem with food courts isn’t just the shitty fast food and even shittier uncleaned tables and chairs. No, my primary food court problem is that there’s no physical way to shield yourself from hundreds of people eating together. I should probably just wear ear plugs and keep my head down, but who thinks to carry earplugs to a mall? The noises are only part of the issue anyway, and eventually I find myself watching my fellow humans in the act of consumption. I should add that I only end up in food courts when forced to accompany the women in my life on a shopping adventure. I’ve tried to talk them into eating before we hit the mall, but evidently food court dining is part of the overall experience. Visiting every frigging shoe store in the complex generates an appetite I guess.

Anyway…….food court viewing.

It’s kind of like witnessing a train wreck or watching as a tsunami hits the shore. You know what you’re about to see is surely going to be a terrible thing, but you’re transfixed between amazement and horror, and so you watch.

I suppose this horror I’m speaking of isn’t exclusive to food courts. It exists anywhere that humans gather in large numbers to jockey for spaces so they can fill their faces. Imagine just how horrific a food court would become if KFC and Thai Express introduced all you can eat Tuesday? I shudder at the thought.

All you can eat.

Jesus, what a concept.

But first some other food court observations.

I always wonder what went wrong with a person’s life that see’s them end up emptying trays and cleaning tables at the mall mass eatery. These people are usually older women and they look grimly resigned to their fate, as if they’re paying penance for a series of sins they’ve committed over their lifetimes. I always feel sorry for them and silently wish them some good fortune, like a lottery win.

While I’m on the subject of sympathy. Food courts seem to attract disabled people and their caregivers. They make me crazy for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I’m humbled by the caregivers. I don’t know where they acquired the strength to provide that care day after fucking day, and not get so overwhelmed that they hang themselves from the upper deck railing by Lulu Lemon. Also, I can’t help but wonder how painful it must be to be sound of mind, but wheelchair bound and dependant on a saintly caregiver to ram another spoonful of shitty fried rice into their gullet.

I dunno. I think if I were trapped in one of those wheelchariots, that the first time my custodian turned their back that I’d try and toggle my way down some stairs or out into traffic. I suppose though that a person would have to be in a chairiot to fully understand what motivates you to keep breathing. I also understand that your average mall provides visual stimuli and the walking area’s are wide enough to race their chairiots if they were inclined. But fuck, their plight resonates sadness within me.

This melancholy I feel for people who’ve been dealt a shitty life hand turns into anger when I’m forced to sit in the food court. Anger at the people who didn’t receive a genetic nut kick and who have no inkling of how they’re wasting their lives by never aspiring to anything beyond being a dumb fuck in the food court.

And those people abundantly populate all food courts, in all cities, in all countries, on all continents.

One quick look around in a food court and you’re likely to see more ass cracks than a proctologist. I know for a fact that there are all kinds of shops in the mall that sell belts but for some reason the food court seems to attract the extra sized baggy pants fuckers in droves. And, they can’t all be plumbers.

Another glance and you’re certain to see street people hanging around trying to panhandle a couple bucks without security being on their case. I always wonder how shitty your fortunes or decisions had to be to find yourself furtively glancing over your shoulder, wondering if some rent a cop is going to boot you out of a fucking food court.

I also can’t help but notice that while some people are panhandling, that there are ten times as many people throwing half their food away. That’s assuming those people are even motivated enough to bother to walk a few meters to clean their own tray. Fuck it, that’s what they pay the depressed granny for right?

Also, what the hell is it about food courts and baggy grey sweatpants? About half the pyjama pant people are the ass crackers I mentioned earlier, but there doesn’t seem to be a particular body type sporting the grey. The only similarity I can see in all the grey pj people is that they seem disinclined to wash their hair. I can only assume that less visible body parts receive even less soapy attention.

Not everyone in the court is a loser. I have a rating system to distinguish the teenager trying to grab something to eat and then get back to their shift at the Gap, from the meth head trying to get out of the cold.

You have to watch them eat though.

Sometimes you don’t even have to watch. Sometimes if you’re near enough you can hear people eating. I think that if you can hear someone slurping the skin off a KFC leg from ten meters, it’s safe to conclude they don’t have much to offer the world. Except make copies of themselves. For some reason the slurpers and opened mouth chewers seem to breed successfully. Not well mind you, but often.