My behavior has taken a troubling turn over the past year. I have begun to devolve. I have become a weirdo. I have become a person who eats his lunch in his car.
I haven’t always been like this. I used to use my car only for driving. I used to eat lunch in normal places, like cafeterias and restaurants, or even on nice blankets of grass in parks with sunshine and pigeons and beautiful office workers who all looked like they would want to be my friend for life if I just nodded in their direction and waved and said hello. I used to eat lunch with my friends.
But those days are dissolving away. Now I eat my lunch in my car. Now I eat my lunch in a moveable cave made of steel and plastic and safety glass, and I eat it alone. I do it by choice, I actually prefer it, and I don’t see myself changing anytime soon. The truth is, I want to eat lunch alone. I don’t want to eat lunch with other people. I want to eat by myself.
The roots of this behavior are unclear. Perhaps something dark and disturbing buried deep in my lunchtime past. A cruel lunch matron with a hairnet and ladles and fish sticks of dubious fish stick intent, or the memory of that weird lunchroom odor (you know the one), and those sinister portions of overcooked franks and beans.
But maybe it’s not something so deep and distant. Maybe it’s not something that’s going to require regression therapy. Maybe it’s not me. Maybe it’s us. And by “us” of course, I mean maybe it’s you. Maybe you’re the reason I want to eat alone in my car.
Let’s look at the evidence. It has two parts.
People’s Item #1. Let’s say you’re a coworker. We get along fine at work, but I see you everyday. That’s why we get along. We HAVE to get along. I associate you with work, and stress, and Hell. I blame you for the recession. If I’m lucky I get a single 1-hour chance per day to not be with you. No offense, but I’m going for it.
People’s Item #2. Let’s say you’re the second part of the equation; you’re a stranger. This means, to me, you are inherently weird and unpleasant. You’re politics are going to be wrong. You’re going to be too liberal or too conservative, and depending on my mood, too old, too young, too attractive, too ugly, too rich, too poor, too fat, too thin, too ethnic, or not ethnic enough. I blame you for the recession. What’s worse is you probably make a lot of noise eating food items that I think are gross just to look at, let alone chew.
There was a time in my life when I used to be adventurous, when I wanted to meet other Americans. I wanted to hear their ideas. I wanted to learn their past. But that was a million years ago. This is modern America. This is now. We don’t like each other anymore. If I want to meet strangers I’ll go on Craig’s List.
Now I eat lunch alone in my car. I do it because it’s peaceful and warm. I don’t have to make small talk or navigate office politics. I don’t have to smell your salad dressing or listen to you eat your soup. I can listen to the radio without compromise. For forty minutes several times a week I have a sanctuary.
When I first started doing this, I was ashamed. I felt like a social misfit. I would buy supermarket take-out food and then drive to parking areas next to public use areas where I hoped I’d at least have a good view of some natural resource; a river, a pond, a skyline view, …whatever. But soon I noticed that other people were visiting these areas too, and they didn’t seem interested in eating a sandwich. So I changed my grazing pattern. I started staying in the super market parking lot.
And here is what is most remarkable: One day, when I bothered to look around, when I dared to survey my surroundings, when I dared to focus my gaze outside of my cave, I discovered an unsettling fact; the parking lot was full of other cars with other people doing exactly the same thing. All around me people were eating their lunches, alone in their cars. This is where the modern American culture is going. We’re becoming a nation of loners eating lunch in our cars.
Curious, I’ve considered approaching these other diners, but that would violate the unwritten code. These people, like me, don’t want to be approached. They want to be invisible. They want to observe that holiest of American car culture codes, the Car Code of Sanctity…that law of preternatural physics that dictates that once inside our motor vehicles we Americans are omnipotent and unshackled and beyond the bounds of rational judgment and man made laws. We can be happy or sad or mean or stupid. We can talk to ourselves or sing to ourselves or sling profanities at every person we’ve never liked, …but we cannot, cannot, CANNOT acknowledge the person eating tofu, parked two spaces over.
Those are the boundaries; those are the rules, the ins and the outs, of the dining car blues.
© 2009 J. Mark Rast
I haven’t always been like this. I used to use my car only for driving. I used to eat lunch in normal places, like cafeterias and restaurants, or even on nice blankets of grass in parks with sunshine and pigeons and beautiful office workers who all looked like they would want to be my friend for life if I just nodded in their direction and waved and said hello. I used to eat lunch with my friends.
But those days are dissolving away. Now I eat my lunch in my car. Now I eat my lunch in a moveable cave made of steel and plastic and safety glass, and I eat it alone. I do it by choice, I actually prefer it, and I don’t see myself changing anytime soon. The truth is, I want to eat lunch alone. I don’t want to eat lunch with other people. I want to eat by myself.
The roots of this behavior are unclear. Perhaps something dark and disturbing buried deep in my lunchtime past. A cruel lunch matron with a hairnet and ladles and fish sticks of dubious fish stick intent, or the memory of that weird lunchroom odor (you know the one), and those sinister portions of overcooked franks and beans.
But maybe it’s not something so deep and distant. Maybe it’s not something that’s going to require regression therapy. Maybe it’s not me. Maybe it’s us. And by “us” of course, I mean maybe it’s you. Maybe you’re the reason I want to eat alone in my car.
Let’s look at the evidence. It has two parts.
People’s Item #1. Let’s say you’re a coworker. We get along fine at work, but I see you everyday. That’s why we get along. We HAVE to get along. I associate you with work, and stress, and Hell. I blame you for the recession. If I’m lucky I get a single 1-hour chance per day to not be with you. No offense, but I’m going for it.
People’s Item #2. Let’s say you’re the second part of the equation; you’re a stranger. This means, to me, you are inherently weird and unpleasant. You’re politics are going to be wrong. You’re going to be too liberal or too conservative, and depending on my mood, too old, too young, too attractive, too ugly, too rich, too poor, too fat, too thin, too ethnic, or not ethnic enough. I blame you for the recession. What’s worse is you probably make a lot of noise eating food items that I think are gross just to look at, let alone chew.
There was a time in my life when I used to be adventurous, when I wanted to meet other Americans. I wanted to hear their ideas. I wanted to learn their past. But that was a million years ago. This is modern America. This is now. We don’t like each other anymore. If I want to meet strangers I’ll go on Craig’s List.
Now I eat lunch alone in my car. I do it because it’s peaceful and warm. I don’t have to make small talk or navigate office politics. I don’t have to smell your salad dressing or listen to you eat your soup. I can listen to the radio without compromise. For forty minutes several times a week I have a sanctuary.
When I first started doing this, I was ashamed. I felt like a social misfit. I would buy supermarket take-out food and then drive to parking areas next to public use areas where I hoped I’d at least have a good view of some natural resource; a river, a pond, a skyline view, …whatever. But soon I noticed that other people were visiting these areas too, and they didn’t seem interested in eating a sandwich. So I changed my grazing pattern. I started staying in the super market parking lot.
And here is what is most remarkable: One day, when I bothered to look around, when I dared to survey my surroundings, when I dared to focus my gaze outside of my cave, I discovered an unsettling fact; the parking lot was full of other cars with other people doing exactly the same thing. All around me people were eating their lunches, alone in their cars. This is where the modern American culture is going. We’re becoming a nation of loners eating lunch in our cars.
Curious, I’ve considered approaching these other diners, but that would violate the unwritten code. These people, like me, don’t want to be approached. They want to be invisible. They want to observe that holiest of American car culture codes, the Car Code of Sanctity…that law of preternatural physics that dictates that once inside our motor vehicles we Americans are omnipotent and unshackled and beyond the bounds of rational judgment and man made laws. We can be happy or sad or mean or stupid. We can talk to ourselves or sing to ourselves or sling profanities at every person we’ve never liked, …but we cannot, cannot, CANNOT acknowledge the person eating tofu, parked two spaces over.
Those are the boundaries; those are the rules, the ins and the outs, of the dining car blues.
© 2009 J. Mark Rast
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