A few lines read does nothing to tell a full story of one’s life lived. When chapters have been skipped, even clef notes can leave out important details.
Recently, an elderly man came by my side to suggest that the sandwiches they had on display at a cafe all looked real.
I knew they were real. Each clearly had been sitting within each spot for several days, meat and vegetables having dried out on the sides.
Caught off guard as I was busily looking at what else the cafe had to offer while exchanging conversations with my youngest boys who were standing close by, I could only politely laugh and suggest, “You never know. They could have made them that way to give the real look.”
I thought to play along with whatever humor presumed to be delivered.
He noted that indeed they were real, putting his face closer to the window glass, noting the evident expiring look, now seemingly dissatisfied with the way I had responded.
I gathered he wanted me to concur that they indeed were real. What he perhaps didn’t pick up was that my mind was just trying to jump ahead to some play along.
I could only add, “Yes, they are. But, on a rough day, they would taste just fine.”
He walked away with nothing more and I resumed to order.
In the back of my head, I couldn’t help think he thought my response to be dull-witted (as I gather sometimes my sense of humor presents itself).
What that man didn’t know was that I knew for certain the sandwiches on display were indeed real, given the dried out vegetables and meats, all looking dehydrated and devoid of their luster.
One of the jobs I had in college was to work at a children’s museum. There was a market area where global stores and restaurants were simulated for child play.
As kids do, they would take a plate or basket, gather all types of foods to their liking and place them all as one order on a table.
Throughout the day, I would be one to return all child’s play pieces to their correct designations.
From a bat costume in the central cave to loose balls in the aerodynamics room, I would be collecting and returning, that of which included every piece of waxed foods, even those fake sandwiches.
So, needless to explain to a man who caught me off guard who I knew needed no time to hear my understanding of fake foods to real foods, I could easily see that the establishment rather preferred to create real display items than fake ones.
Prior to college, I had made and served sandwiches at a deli during high school. That was one of my many duties at a grocery store I worked at since the age of fourteen (I needed to support myself in high school and Mama had a way of getting me to do just that entering my freshmen year).
My main titles, but dutifully not limited to, by no exaggeration, was as follows from one title “promotion” to another: courtesy clerk (sweep/mop floors including bathrooms, clean windows, re-shelf returned/misplaced items, and bag groceries), helper clerk (stock food/beverages with, at times, a manual forklift and use a machine for crushing boxes), cashier clerk (main registry along with cigarette/lottery purchases and video rentals while answering calls; prepare grocery order deliveries), deli clerk (open and close deli; prepare and pack foods; cut and display cheese and meat)- all titles which required help with security when needed by the use of a radio (my role was mainly to pat down and frisk females alleged with larceny).
From working various machinery to 10-key calculators with ease when balancing registry tills, I smiled upon the title given to me as “One-man Anne”.
I had always been so eager to do so I could learn how.
It is to say the least that by the time I entered college, my resume looked quite exaggerated. If anything, all that I mentioned above was more than what I had written. Having the fortune of being president of Academy of Finance in high school, one of my greatest benefit was to have been trained how to complete a resume to train others.
My work experience had to not look over-exaggerated, needing to be balanced with leadership roles.
There will be a time where I can share with you my experience of being on a real witness stand prior to me being on a Mock Trial team. I have to laugh now. Before I ever competed nationally to where our team traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, after winning in our state capitol (against a renowned private school, I have to add), understandably, to even tell anyone that I had already experienced a real trial (from an arbitration to being called to testify before a judge and jury due to a woman who alleged discrimination upon being apprehended outside with a cartful of unpaid groceries), they would perhaps think my life at such a young age was too fabricated.
I can only quietly laugh, in moments where I silently find myself facing something my history has come across.
“I have been trained for this.”
Sadly, not all trainings are felt as fortune, but moments of unfortunate happenstance. And, yet, there you are. Feeling well prepared and experienced, unbeknownst to anyone.
Our journeys traveled provides as wisdom to pick up, one happy or bitter moment at a time. Amidst the still waters and the giant waves trying to put you under, there is this sense of victory in each step as you get to move forward.
I have only watched the movie, Slumdog Millionaire, in its entirety, once. That’s all my heart can take as truth runs deep to a point where I can feel anger within me that I’d rather not have visit to the surface.
When the main character was suspected to be cheating his way to the million-dollar question, I felt and understood in my heart, my mind, my body, and my spirit what the movie was trying to deeply depict in those moments of memory recall for every question answered correctly due to chance of what life he walked.
Humor has gotten me far ahead in life, staying like a child inside, dancing in my head to ignore such attempted inflictions in this world.
So, when I joked with the elderly man who I sensed felt I knew no difference between a fake and real sandwich, I could only welcome and accept the judgment.
No book can write every moment of your life. Books get edited whilst movies inspired by books are edited furthermore.
The glimpse one sees of you is yet a sentence or paragraph of a page.
Should we put fault in anyone who fails to have read the contents of our chapters already written?
Would not be the greatest empowerment in feeling the pains of an opinion be knowing your truth?
Could we not forgive and laugh to ourselves silently knowing our own victories?
When you’ve lived enough to know fake from real, a real, good sandwich is a real good sandwich.
When you’ve felt the pains of hunger aside from knowing hunger, even a few days old sandwich is… a real good sandwich.
