The American Pandemic of Sloth

Her entire face lit up at the suggestion and she nodded vigorously, her short pony tail bobbing up and down in agreement. You would have thought I was giving her a billion dollars or proclaiming that she was now Queen of the Universe, a job I imagine would be immensely enjoyable but somewhat time consuming. The only thing I was doing was inviting this poor woman to lunch. There is a little café a few blocks away from my high school and I thought it might be fun to check it out one day during lunch. It was for purely selfish reasons, as I’d rather not go alone. Having a native speaker there to help speed up the complex menu-reading process would be rather nice; I could just lean back and when something pleasant-sounding was read to me, say, “Yes. That’ll do.” That, and she seems like a nice woman, complete with a car.

We hung out over the weekend and the only thing I really know for sure about her is that she is a lousy judge of character as she seems oddly eager to hang out with me and shower me with undeserved and somewhat strangely phrased compliments about my ‘strong’ character and soul (hence, of course, my ego asking her to lunch). She works in the main office on the bottom floor and from what I could gather seems to help answer phones and do some sort of accounting work. Whenever I happen to drop in on the office, nosing around for free food she never seems all that busy to me.

We decided that the following Wednesday was an agreeable date for both of us and I promptly marked it on my calendar.

She returned about an hour later looking utterly defeated.

“Nikki, I’m sorry. Next Wednesday is a busy day and there will be many people. Many phone calls. For that reason I cannot go to lunch with you. And on other days I cannot go for the same reason.” She looked bitterly remorseful and awkward all at the same time.

I sort of just assumed that everyone was granted an hour for lunch. It didn’t occur to Americentric me that any of the staff here might have to stay holed up at their desks for ten hours straight just in case someone by chance happened to dial a wrong number and get the high school. It also didn’t occur to me that she would have to ask for an hour off a week ahead of time to go grab a cup of coffee and a sandwich somewhere.

I assured her that it was okay but that didn’t stop her from forlornly apologizing over and over again.

Even though we work in the same school we work in two completely different worlds. I am exceedingly spoiled in that I can pretty much go to lunch whenever I so feel like it whether it be 9:30 in the morning or 2:30 in the afternoon. I may wander the neighborhood and spend half an hour attempting to read the Kanji on peoples’ mailboxes – as it only minimally interrupts my very busy day of checking my email, tinkering with my blog, munching on Pocky, reading some Roald Dahl and studying some occasional Japanese.

I’d like to think they allow me all this free time for “lunch” because they understand that it takes me a good thirty minutes to decide what I want to eat and then I must tackle the daunting task of venturing to read whatever is on the labels to see if it is, in fact, edible and not something repulsive like crunchy antelope cartilage or dried, salted baby sea horses. This, of course, takes me nearly to the time when I’d normally go home. Perhaps they are afraid that my lax, slaphappy American ways will corrupt their diligent office worker, or that my supposed sloth is contagious.

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Published:
11.28.06 / 6pm
Category:
what i call life