Life can be pretty trying when you're a hermit, even when you're a guitar-playing hermit.

I like to observe people. The most fascinating place to observe people are at food courts. You can find them everywhere, every single mall in the world has a food court. Food is the major source of the homosapiens nourishment. So one day if you are bored, go to a food court and observe. Just be careful that you don't 'stare', because that freaks people out.

Anyways today I happened upon the food court at Garden City, one of the biggest shopping malls south of Brisbane, also only about 5 mins drive away. My niece and I scoped out a pretty good observation spot. A barstool table that was against a glass wall, on the other side of the glass was a little water feature and on the other side of that were the people for me to observe! It was a perfect spot as the water feature created a boundary, so if people noticed me observing, it was very easy to look into the water feature.

Today was a good observation day. Directly opposite our observation deck a mother and her son decided to sit down and eat. They were absolutely fascinating! They chose the asian all you can eat deal. Stuffing their plate full of noodles. I thought immediately watching the little boy eat all those noodles was going to be fun. Boy was I wrong! that was the least interesting part of their activity. They had too much other stuff for me to watch. They had a sort of ritual.

The mum sat the little boy down. Went into her knap sack and pulled out a bottle of water and some tissues. I thought, what a great idea to save money on drinks! .. was I wrong, she proceeded to pour the water onto the tissues and cleaned the boys hands and face. She then got the cutlery from the takeaway and proceeded to clean that too. I have never seen anyone be so pedantic about cleaniness in a public place. I felt like yelling out to her and warning her of the snotty nosed kid who sat at that same table not 5 mins before they arrived. The preparation for eating took a good 3 minutes.

Then the boy got thirsty, into the knap sack the mum dove, and out came a bottle of juice, the bottle had a drinking lid on it. I thought nothing of it until I observed the boy taking off the lid. The mum was still rummaging through her knap sack and pulled out a straw. Weirdness I thought! the bottle already has a drinking cap.. why the straw ? ? The mum then got her other bottle of water and proceeded to clean the straw, being very careful to pour the water down the tube and then blow down it, to make sure it was clear. Yeah I know .. blowing down a straw .. isn't that germy ? hah ..

All the while I sat as my niece played with her burger and we shared our fanta .. we only had one straw ..