Nurse the Hate: The Other Booth at the Restaurant

Tuesday 1:35pm Don's Lighthouse restaurant, booth #4

Susan adjusted her librarian's glasses and picked up steam in regaling her dining companion with the outrages visited upon her by her mother and brother.  The woman on the other side of the table visibly braced herself as the speed of the chatter increased.  Susan confidently soldiered on, buoyed by her clear moral and intellectual superiority to that of her bungling family.  One day they would recognize that her plan for transporting mother to the wedding reception was clearly the best. She had worked out the logistics of the matter and discussed it with anyone unfortunate enough to fall into her conversational web.  It was undeniable.  She could save minutes, MINUTES!, with her route.  The rest of them were wrong, dead wrong. 

 

Her brother had waved her off at the family picnic on Sunday, you know how he was...  He was always so smug.  He was always the favorite despite Susan's better grades and full ledger of activities in school that made her a shoo-in at the commuter college.  She could have gone to State, but just chose not to.  Who wanted to go there anyway, with all those drunken frat boys and sorority girls with their parties she was never invited to anyway.  No, she lived at home and saved her money for the modest apartment in the airport flight path and the reliable blue Ford Focus in the parking lot (paid in full, thank you!).   

 

Susan was very animated now.  Her mouth moving rapidly.  Hands emerging from under the booth of the restaurant table to emphasize key points.  It was so liberating to tell someone what a bunch of fools she had lived with for so long.  This family that continued to celebrate her slacker brother and ignored her slow march to prominence as the assistant human resource director for the third largest pharmacy chain in NE Ohio.  She couldn't wait to see the rest of the family after she had so deftly enacted her plan.  They were only pawns in her Machiavellian maneuvers. Then standing at the reception, she would revel in the triumph that had so far so deftly alluded her.  I told you!  I told you my way was faster! 

 

Her companion's expression now glazed over, Susan obliviously circled back to reveal more delicious details.  Each remembered outrage producing yet another minor plot twist that linked to yet another in a never-ending chain of complaints and back story.  Susan was unable to see the posture of her companion begin to slump slightly, as if she had given up ever leaving the booth or conversation.