Hey! Do you like beef?!
This morning, on the T, right after putting my book away, a loud voice next to me said “I was born in 1974. When were you born?”
A chubby man with mental retardation was a few seats to my right.
I smiled, and told him.
“I’m from Baltimore. Where are you from?”
“New York.”
“Do you like beef?”
“No. I don’t eat beef.” (At this point, I’m giggling, along with the two gentlemen sitting across from us in the train car.)
“It’s raining. We don’t need it.”
“You’ve got that right.”
“Do you like chicken?”
“No, I don’t like chicken. I don’t eat meat.”
“You don’t enjoy poultry?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” he said, very gravely.
“I suppose it is!” I laughed.
He paused. ”It’s raining. We don’t need it.”
“I was just telling myself the same thing this morning,” I said.
Then, it was his stop, and he got up and left.
As we were getting off at our stop, one of the gentlemen who had witnessed the conversation, still chuckling, said to me ” ‘That’s too bad’ that you don’t eat poultry. I’ll be laughing about that all day!”
It’s amazing how our society mistreats and disregards those who have any sort of mental “handicap,” not to mention that most cynical people would have ignored his invitation to talk altogether. Meanwhile, this man on the T this morning wanted nothing but to be friendly, and ended up cheering up a bunch of depressed, bored, tired commuters.
