Oct. 13, 2004

Just A Sip

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The other day I was having lunch at one of my favourite cafe restaurants in St Kilda. I was munching quite happily on my nachos (a very generous serve with superb guacamole) when I noticed an old woman sitting two tables away.

She looked very old, and her clothes even older, and she was sitting on her own with about nine bottles of various fruit juices on the table before her. They were those small 100% fruit juice bottles and their orange screw lid makes a popping sound when you first open it.

Curious, I watched the old woman for a while. No one else seem to be noticing her, or her little collection of juice bottles. She must've been really thirsty I thought. She took a very little sip from the first bottle with her unsteady wrinkled lips. But she must not have liked it because she left that one and opened up another and took a little sip from it instead.

But that mustn't have been to her liking either, I thought, because she left that one too and moved to the next. And so on and so on she did this as I watched out of the corner of my eye.

Until, at last, she had taken a little sip out of each bottle. In fact, barely enough to notice that any was missing. Then the old woman carefully screwed all the lids back onto the bottles and walked out without a word. Strange behaviour, I thought, very strange indeed.

But it all turned out alright because very soon afterwards a nice waitress came by, Julie was her name, and picked up all of those bottles and promptly returned them to the refridgerator.

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