Copyright 2006 Vivian Banta

Picture this. You’ve been sitting in a restaurant for 10 minutes. You peer at your watch yup, your lunch companion is late. By five minutes because you were 5 minutes early. You glance at the two menus that the waitperson placed efficiently on the table and sip at your ice water. You don’t worry too much because he/she is usually late. 15 minutes. You read the menu again and try to radiate confidence when the waitperson checks on you. You said you’d wait until your other party arrived to order but now you’re starting to get really hungry. 20 minutes. You’ve reviewed the menu so many times that you almost feel you could recite it from memory. You almost want to order an appetizer but considering the portion sizes, you know that you’d never finish your entr