>So every couple of months Rob or I will get a craving for some delicious White Castle Burgers. And lucky for us there is a White Castle near our apartment and also one a couple of blocks from our church, so we will grace the establishment with our presence. (If you have a strong aversion to eating at White Castle, please keep reading as it is not the point of this story. I like it because we used to get it when I visited my grandparents, and Rob likes it cause, well he’s a guy.)
So this is the first time we’ve been to the one near church, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It is smaller than the Queens restaurant, but has seating. We go in and order. We get our food and sit down. The employees and clientele are somewhat questionable, but it’s ok. We sat in a corner table. (Rob had the forethought to put my purse in the corner seat rather than the one open to the other tables, just in case.) Across the eating area from us is an alclove of sorts, there is one table, a wall of gumball machines, and the bathrooms. A well dressed woman, in a black suit is sitting at the table looking through some papers. She asked for a knife and extra plate, I can only assume that plastic knives are viewed as some sort of weapon as they were in a lidded plastic container behind the counter. Not to strange yet. But then she asks us if we were going to be at our table for a few minutes and if we would mind watching her things for a couple of minutes. I said sure and she walked out the door. I immediatley thought of this post from The Meanest Mom, a blog I came across in my new hobby reading blogs by people I don’t actually know. My back is to the woman’s table so I tell Rob to watch out for sketchiness as I am tell him about the post when I realize that the women did not go to the bathroom, but outside. So I ask Rob, “Where did she go?” His answer, “To get a pizza.” So confused.
But sure enough the woman is walking back into White Castle with a pizza. I look at her thinking she went to get a pizza to take home to the family or something while comtempating why she didn’t take her stuff with her, when she asks us if we would like some pizza. Now why anyone would ask this when we have clearly just begun eating our tray of delicious White Castle burgers is beyond me, so I roll my eyes and go back to eating. At some point in the next few minutes a guy asks if he can have a piece of pizza, I hear her say in about 10 minutes, so I turn and look and see her setting a square of paper with numbers on it in the pizza box. I turn back to Rob when he alerts me to the fact that she is taking pictures of the pizza. So wierd! He says she is taking pictures for evidence in her trial. I mean she is in a suit in White Castle. I am intrigued, I can’t stop watching, but I have to turn carefully as staring is rude. She folds the box down, and it looks as though she is about to eat, when NO! she tacks the paper to the back of the pizza box top which is now propped against her White Castle cup, and takes more pictures. I guess the first set weren’t good enough.
Now she sits down, pulls out the knife she asked for earlier and begins cutting the pizza. Fun stops right. NO! It gets even wierder! She cuts the pizza into eight pieces (we were watching closely once the strangeness got out of control) And turns every other one upside down. Then she continues cutting. Two cops come in. First she asks them if they want pizza (seriously – you don’t come to White Castle if you really want pizza) then as they inquire she tells them they can’t kick her out she isn’t doing anything wrong. And goes back to cutting her pizza. Each piece is cut in half, and she moves them around like puzzle pieces, turning some upside down, and others not. THEN she proceeds to build some sort of sculpure. Rob asks me at this point if I’ve ever seen “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” I haven’t but I guess there is a character who has to build the same shape over and over. This woman reminded Rob of that. I’m telling you it took great restraint to not pull out my camera and start snapping away.
I really wanted to ask her what she was doing. Hoping there was some very logical reason why a woman in a suit is taking pictures of and making a scuplture with a pizza in White Castle. But then I told myself I would be inviting a conversation that I’m not sure I want to have with a strange woman building a pizza scuplture in White Castle. Rob went to thow our trash away. The trash can right next to her as she is now takign pictures of the pizza sculpture, with the square paper with numbers on it now on the sculputre. It took all of Rob’s restraint that he didn’t ask her either. Instead we walked out of White Castle and cracked up laughing.
The strangest thing I’ve encountered in quite awhile. And living in New York, and the fact that Friday was Halloween, that is saying something. I really wish I knew what it was all about…