Telling Details

Suzzette Medina
MCom 100W- Tu/Th 10:30am
Telling Details Assignment
Word Count: 364

After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, our two dishes finally arrived at the table. I began to dig into my soup, throw on garnishes, and squeeze limes into the mix in a frenzy. Erin simply stared at her dish distrustfully, eyeing the vegetables and noodles up and down like a detective. She slowly lifted up her fork and picked at the dish repositioning the ingredients around on her plate. Her eyes seemed to be fixated on the few crustaceans that were maneuvered to the edge of the plate. She had asked for no shrimp, they make her sick. She carefully put the fork back down in its beginning position on the table and rotated her head toward the kitchen. She crossed her arms neatly in front of her, sat up straight, and began observing the personnel of the busy restaurant. I told her she should wave down a server and tell them our waiter made a mistake on the order. Erin replied, “You think I should? Okay, I’ll just wait and see if I can find a server who is not busy.” Erin continued to sit perfectly still exchanging her gazes from one server to the next, never once raising a hand or blurting out an “excuse me?!” The neutral expression on Erin’s face in no way changed as time dragged on. Eventually her weary gaze began drifting back to her dish every few seconds and quickly away again toward the kitchen staff. After a few rounds of tug of war between staring at the concoction on her ceramic plate and at the apron-wearing personnel, she returned her view and repositioned her body toward her dinner. She then delicately lifted up her fork once more and slowly inched the three pieces of shrimp off her plate, like they were being pushed off a plank. A small frown appeared on her face as she hesitantly began chewing the remains of her entrée. “Hmm, I’ll just eat around where the shrimp were I guess,” Erin explained. After a few bites Erin gave out a sigh and positioned her fork neatly across her plate alongside her untouched knife. She was done with her dinner.