by: Mark Thomas

There is nothing quite like eating your supper in the presence of a slob. To wit, I just returned from a diner on 79th Street and 1st Avenue, where my gyro deluxe (no onions) Dining Extravaganza was seriously disturbed by the sounds of a man snorting, belching, and possibly farting his way through what must have been a savage beast of a dinner.

I am not especially hung up on matters of etiquette (although I read Emily Post's book, and found it very charming), nor I am myself any kind of role model as far as table manners and common decency are concerned.

But you can really learn to appreciate the company of people who chew with their mouths closed. And who eat macaroni & cheese with a fork, or with some sort of eating utensil.

I was busily trying to eat when it became obvious to me that someone behind me was far hungrier and far more committed to his dinner than anyone else in the place. He was positively snorting, and as he very loudly chewed his mouth was a vortex of consumption, producing a rancid, filthy flush of preliminary digestion which had only to be heard to be feared. I was very much afraid to turn around, for fear of what I would see. What if this man was not only belching and snorting, what if he also was vomiting onto his plate and lapping it up, or smearing it across his face, and what if he had eyes so feral that they grind me into bile with just a passing glance?

I decided to look at him. I am not the most discreet fellow sometimes. But neither was this man. I strained to seem as natural as possible - I'd hate to offend anyone by obviously turning my head 180( just to get a look at him. What I saw was terrible. The man appeared to be in his mid to late fifties. His thick, black-rimmed eyeglasses were smattered with what appeared to be soup or salad dressing; when I first caught sight of him, he had a bowl of soup thrust up to his face, and as he withdrew the bowl and put it back on the table he grabbed a hot dog -- A HOT DOG!! -- and just seemed to cram the entire thing right down his throat (there was no bun). At the same time, in his other hand, without the indignity of an eating utensil, was a good-sized helping of macaroni & cheese. I saw that horrendous mouth, and it was every bit as horrifying and gaping as it had sounded, and it was slobbering a yellowish, thick kind of spittle that finally made me turn away and cover my ears until he was gone.

I really did feel more than a little sorry for the man. I hope that his manner of consuming food is not actually a catharsis for some other problem in his life. *