I could tell that it was him from the dingling sound the bell on his cellphone attachment. Even tho he wasn't supposed to, he carried his phone with him most of the time, with the little bell dangling out of his coat pocket from time to time.
"Lunch?" he asked.
"Yeah," I replied without looking up from my book. Come to think of it, this is the first time this year that we've had the exact same schedule, including lunch schedule, which was a little strange because we were a little under-staffed at the time. He sat down in the chair to my left and made himself comfortable while I observed quietly with my peripheral vision.
"Nuggets," he started pulling stuff out of his Wendy's take-out bag. "And sauce. Have some."
I took one and thanked him for it.
"Teach me Chinese," he said, reaching for my book. "Let me read it to you."
"And why do you want to learn it?"
"Because I want to," he pointed to a word. "Does this say horse?"
"No. It looks a little like it, but that's not it."
"Oh. Does this say car?"
"No. That doesn't look anything like car."
"I know this says one."
"Yes."
"So this says ... one ... one ... one ... and one," he closed the book and stared at the cover. "And this is a ... romance novel?"
"It's a book about the author's experiences in the Sahara Desert."
"Ah," he handed the book back to me. "I only know horse and car because I play Chinese chess."
The conversation was beginning to get very irrelevant, but for some reason he enjoyed talking anyway. Some people are just natural speakers, regardless of what they talk about or who they talk to. And so we talked ... and ate, for the next 20 minutes or so on things that I do not particularly remember.
"That really isn't healthy for you," he announced, somewhere during the middle of our conversation.
I looked at my microwaved bite-sized pizza pockets; unhealthy ... yes, but it wasn't like I had a lot of choices to pick from.
"Tell you what," he pushed his chicken nuggets to me as if he's forgotten that he had already offered them to me. "Eat more of this."
LOL. Wendy's.
"It's not that healthy either, but I know Wendy's doesn't use frozen foods ..."
I kind of wondered where he got that idea, but then again, I think he's been around a lot more than I have. I took another nugget and dipped it into the sauce.
"So what do you do during your spare time?"
"Nothing really. Surfing the web and looking for jobs?"
"You're still looking?"
"Yeah, you know how tough it is out there."
"If you want I can hook you up with a pharmacist job at CVS."
I nearly choked on my mouthful of food.
"You mean a pharm tech job?"
"Oh, haha," he laughed. "Yeah, a pharm tech job, because you would need to go thru six years of school ..."
And pass the test, I thought to myself.
"But my friend ... he's gotten a couple of raises already and he just started not too long ago."
"He must be pretty smart."
"He's an idiot," he shrugged. "He's my friend."
?
"Does that mean you're an idiot too?"
"I mean, he just knows how to make the right choices at the right time."
"That sounds pretty smart to me."
It was kind of nice talking to him, because out of the many people who have asked about my job situation, he was one of the few who actually attempted to offer me a soluation, albeit a not very appealing solution.
But it was still much appreciated.
"Thank you," I smiled as sincerely as I can. "I'll remember to let you know if I really can't find something."
"Yeah," he suddenly stood up. "Do you have fifty-cents?"
I dug out two quarters from my change purse. He now owes me a whopping dollar.
"I need to buy you dinner sometimes," he said when he came back from the vending machine. "I just need to know when you're free."
I nodded. There wasn't really a lot I could say to that. We both make a little more than minimum wage at a not very popular clothing store. We really have no business buying dinner for other people, tho it was a nice thought.
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