eating with (a) total stranger(s)

have you ever eaten with a complete and total stranger? your answer may be a No but actually, most, if not all of us have done at least once in our lives. some of you may do so every other day without you realizing it. wanna know why?

here's why.

if you eat at a food court, you are bound to eat with strangers. yes. now it hit you, didn't it? but it's true, right? you may not know the people sitting on your left or right and sometimes in front of you yet you eat at the same table (in situations where the table is a long table or where the tables are close to one another).

so what, you may ask? as long as they keep their foods in their mouths and they don't pick up on your food, what's the problem, right? not really.

it happened to me yesterday at lunch. i was in Shah Alam and i went to the food court in Giant, noted with its sizzling hot plate noodles. well, at least it is noted among my uni friends. ask any Shah Alam-ian or students in Shah Alam and i bet 9/10 will agree with me. i was all alone so i bought the noodle and a drink and started to find a place to sit. luckily the food court was not that crowded. i managed to grab a seat. as i was about to eat, two ladies asked if the seats beside me are occupied, to which i said no. then they sat down. and later on, two guys came and sat in front of me. the table has 4 seats, 3 of which are already occupied but the tables are close to one another. the seat in front of me was empty. one of the guys sat in front of me and his friend sat beside him. yes, of all places, they chose to sit there, huh? that didn't bother me much because most seats are probably occupied. what bothered me are:

• they didn't have the courtesy to even ask if the seat is occupied or not;
• they talked and yapped like nobody's business;
• one of them ate with a really annoying sound; and
  
• another one slurped his cendol like he's never tasted cendol in his life.

you get the idea? and not to mention, the two ladies beside me was also busy talking about holiday plans, hotels, where to take the kids and what not. seriously. but then, there's nothing much i can do as it is a public place, but that does not mean that you have to leave your courtesy behind at your work place, do you? and you don't have to tell the whole world food court about your holiday plans, do you? there's no way i can finish my noodles in a jiffy without burning my tongue. so i had to endure the whole lunch hour in agony. the only consolation was that the noodle tasted good.

and no, i did not take a picture of the noodles or else those people might think i'm cuckoo. LOL.