Overheard

McDonald’s Family Restaurant

Glendale, Calif.

Oct. 14, 2011

12:17 p.m.

The loud waves of static and country twang normally bludgeoning us from speakers in the ceiling are gone. Management has finally gotten the message: The intermittent warbling of Porter Wagoner isn’t what this population of Armenians and speakers of Spanish as a first language wants to hear while eating.

Check that: Management has merely turned the volume down. Between bites we hear what sounds like people whispering about us from the next room.

A woman sits hunched in the red plastic booth before mine. She stares blankly at the table as she chews. The motion is slow, like a cow’s, the upper plate of teeth grinding her quarter pounder with cheese against the lower.

Suddenly a brown paper bag is heaved onto her table. It lands with a thud, as though filled with sod. Without a word, a similar-looking woman – her sister? – lumbers past, making her way toward the counter.

A third sister, just as bovine in appearance, soon arrives. She slides heavily into the booth and sets down her tray. “My blood sugar’s low. I gotta eat,” says the first sister, explaining why she’s already begun to dig in.

At last, the sister who announced her presence by whipping a grocery bag into their booth reappears. She doesn’t see her sack. “Where’d you put my shit?” she demands.

And here we have the only words spoken, as the three eat in complete silence for an hour, each staring at the table beneath her elbow. Finally the three struggle to their feet, look at their iPhones, and shuffle out to the parking lot.

Artwork by John T. Quinn III