Another "Golden Corral" Eat-A-Thon...

A twenty minute sketch of the soup and veggie bar!

My octogenarian mom likes to visit two Metairie mainstays for good food and good friends.  Last week was no fun at all because after two years of trying to convince mom she shouldn't be driving anymore, she acquiesced and sold her car to our son, who had purchased a used car a year earlier only to have the engine seize up on him.

It apparently had no oil in the crankcase!

Anyway, the 1998 Bonneville continues to stall out in traffic especially after hitting a bump or taking a sharp turn. So, I decided to drive it, once again, to the mechanic to see why the problem isn't getting solved correctly. The plot thickens as the automobile stalls at the top of the cloverleaf during the lunch hour and blocks traffic for a half an hour as I await the tow truck.

Days later, the car is still in the shop, but this sketch isn't about my kid's car problems. 

It is about how long it takes for an aged woman with no teeth to complete a meal, usually a late lunch, with lots of her friends from her many, now defunct, social groups "wheelchair wheeling and dealing" their way through the buffet lines. 

Shuffling with canes, ricocheting in wheel chairs from one friend's table to another or pushing tennis ball laden walkers around, they sample everything the buffet has to offer. Then, someone makes suggestions about the cuisine, which only creates more traffic when an entire table decides that they must taste test a colleague's recommendation. 

With my mom's fading memory, she politely drags her friends to the table to introduce her "Number One Son"... again. When I see mom shuffling back from the buffet bar with a friend in tow, I quickly hide my sketchbook because eventually a conversation would ensue about a talented grandson who just loves to draw and that would add another twenty minutes to the already two hour eat-a-thon.

At this particular luncheon, I managed to eat my fill for lunch and draw two more sketches similar to this soup and veggie bar sketch... and that should give you a pretty good idea about how long my mom ate and "partied down!"

Copyright 2012/Ben Bensen III