In varsity I majored in communications, and took a job working for the campus newspaper. For a while I was responsible for writing menial articles about things folk failed to care about. They were shoved between stories of political upheavals, and photos of campus monuments and statues wrapped in streamers and wearing spray-painted moustaches. About a dozen people on campus likely read articles I had written, and I think the single time they ever did was when they were confused and thought they were finishing an article from some pages before.
But halfway thru my junior year I grabbed the opportunity to be one of the most read reporters that the paper offered. The girl who wrote the cafe reviews graduated in December and in Jan , thru some variety of miracle, I was given her job.
Of course, the paper failed to have a huge budget and I was given 20 dollars a month to eat out, which was nothing considering I was meant to have an article on a new eaterie at the end of each week. As a characteristic poor school student, I was barely making lease, but somehow I managed to eat out every Wednesday, and write about my experience every Thursday, with my eaterie reviews in the paper on Fridays.
At first I talked my chums into taking turns coming with me. But they were given bored with me consistently critiquing everything I ate, as well as stealing their food to eat and judge it, and truly, they were as poor as me and could never afford to come more than a few times.
Then I started asking boys, casually as though it weren't a date, but with a foxy hope that they'd pay for me after the meal. That went well for a few weeks, except the occasional time when a person was offended that I did not offer to pay, and then realized my ploy.
Soon there had been preferred joke on my little campus, and the punch line of the gag suggested that one should never take me out to dinner. So I decided that to scribble real restaurant reviews, I would talk to the bosses of the restaurants and request that they feed me at no cost, at the risk of a poor review.
There were no takers. Seems that my little campus eaterie reviews were not enough of a threat. After a week of clenching my teeth, asking for friends to join me, and begging folks on the paper staff to come, a Wednesday night arrived and I had no-one to join me for dinner. Restaurant reviews were the most fun thing to occur to me at school, and I didn't want to give them up, especially with so many folks queuing for my job, but nothing frightened me more than asking a hostess for a table for one.
I made a decision to go early in the day, around 4 o'clock. I even thought about getting it to go, but I knew I couldn't. I had to appraise the environment and service as well as the food. I brought a notebook, so I could doodle away and look busy, even as I sat alone. I also brought a book, an iPod, and a computer, in case I did not look busy enough. The hostess seated me, and I pulled out my notebook long before the waitress even came to get my drink order, but instead of taking notes, I found myself sketching the people at tables around me. After about forty minutes, I had put away everything I brought with me, and found I could quietly enjoy a meal without being too ashamed to be eating alone.
I wrote my restaurant review and it was one the best I had ever written, even earning me a tiny promotion to 40 food dollars a month. I kept writing until the end of the semester, and all through my senior year. Sometimes a friend or boyfriend joined me on my Wednesday expeditions, but ever since that first public meal alone, the night before I wrote my restaurant reviews became a night by myself to unwind, and participate in one of my favorite activities: eating.
