The Provo Senior Center: A Vignette

THE PROVO SENIOR CENTER: A VIGNETTE

So today the Senior Center lunch is roast beef with lots of gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, and a big fluffy dinner roll. This is Birthday Friday, which means everyone with a birthday this month gets a nice card from the kitchen staff and a piece of sheet cake with gobs of frosting and ice cream on the side.

My birthday is this month. My mouth starts to water as I walk the six blocks from my apartment up to the Senior Center, with the mild sun barely warming my liver spots. I've got some packets of horseradish sauce I snitched from a delicatessen months ago.

Because of my income (or lack thereof) I fall below the luncheon charge threshold; my meals are free. But seeing it's such a beautiful day and I've got such a good hot meal ahead of me, I write a check to drop in the Donation box.

And because, in the famous words of James Cagney, that's the kind of hairpin I am, I have a pocketful of pencil balloons. After the blessing is said, instead of rushing up for my tray, I go around to the ladies at each table and make them poodles.

Ain't I great guy?

Then I get in line with my tray.

But I'm in the Leftovers line. Promptly at 12:20, the cooks hand out any leftovers to whoever comes up with a container. First come, first serve. It's now 12:25, and the meat and mashed potatoes are already gone, along with the big fluffy dinner rolls. There's nothing left but congealed gravy and canned green beans. .

I explain to the cooks I never got first helpings. They shake their heads in dismay, but do nothing except point at the big Howard Miller clock above the stainless steel counter.

I look at the crowd of seniors with their Tupperware containers crammed with seconds of roast beef and mashed potatoes, all of it drowning in gravy. They mutely shuffle away. Not a one offers me some of their leftovers, although I'm sure they all heard me.

I hate seniors.

I take the bus down to Carl's Jr for their special, a double cheeseburger combo for $4.99.