It goes to show that I am rigid and lacking in imagination. Where she sees the sensuous dining experience of finger food, I see a fully-dressed house salad and someone who needs to pick up her damned fork. Dining at 6 Rivers is always an entertaining, albeit frequently overly-loud and understaffed, experience, and Saturday night did not disappoint. The joy of people-watching was abundant, as I scanned the crowd for sportsball fans, semi-rowdy drunks, misfits and young lovers in lust. Of the latter, it was the mid-thirties woman on what I hoped was not a first date, who had not yet learned that salad is not typically finger food. Who am I to judge? Maybe she likes the cool, creamy feeling of dressing sliding down her fingers.

At fourteen, my daughter is finally accepting that some foods should be eaten with a fork if you do not want to draw scorn or disgust from your peers. I imagine that, should I manage to convince her that salad ingredients are truly food, she will have figured out the whole fork and salad thing before long.

I turned back to look at the rest of the crowd for new entertainment. The mesmerizing set of eyeglasses on one furry fellow captivated me. Why had I not thought of extending the lifespan of older glasses by replacing the temples with pencils and rubber bands?

By the time I returned to Salad Fingers, the main course had arrived. Fortunately, the boyfriend/date/companion/victim knew what he was doing, as he ordered a pizza as the main course, saving his date from the awkwardness of trying to shovel handfuls of spaghetti into her mouth. And I am just glad she ordered salad, not soup, as the first course.

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