The Wayward Bus

The woman sitting across the aisle from me is eating the largest Danish I've seen in a while. The pastry doesn't look that great, but the almost luridly red cherries look bizarrely appealing.

I'm almost afraid to think about what it tastes like, lest I be overtaken by a tidal wave of wanting. Or have to rip the pastry out of her hands and run. (Not that I'd get very far – I'm on a bus!)

I'm fascinated by what people are eating on this 4.5 hour trip from New York to Washington DC. Pizza. McDonald's. Kentucky Fried Chicken. Huge Italian sandwiches (the kind from a cheap pizza place, not a good Italian deli): greasy half moons of springy white bread stuffed with ham, cheese, and all manner of cured meats. The woman next to me – tiny and slim – eats a huge bag of Planters milk chocolate and nut trail mix, then pops open a bag of pretzels and chases it with sips of something called Blood Orange Mash. The drink is exactly the same color as pee when one is incredibly dehydrated.

Is this how everyone in America eats? Or just how everyone in America eats on road trips?

The couple across from me have finished their fast food dinners and are now digging into containers of almonds and yogurt covered pretzels. They appear to be eating automatically, one handful following another until the snacks are all gone. No one (except for Danish woman) is overweight.

I'm not sure why I'm so surprised by the food choices. Even at my heaviest and worst bingeing times (which, given this past winter, I guess may not always be the same thing), I have never eaten much fast food. Mid-binge, there is usually some appeal to McDonalds chicken nuggets, milkshakes, and apple pies, but that's really it. I can't work out why these food choices shock me because I assume most people are like me: That they are so well aware of how bad fast food is that it's never really an option. Frankly, it's a stupid assumption on my part, since obviously these restaurants are all still in business. (Are the people on this bus the sort who actually learn something when someone tells them to lose five pounds they should leave the cheese off their burger? If so, I confess I'm sort of jealous of their blissful, caloric ignorance.)

But back to my fascination. Could it be that the abandon with which a lot of people on this bus appear to be eating is the same sort of eating that would (and does) cause me great shame if I do it myself? Yet they're doing it without any apparent panic or remorse. Again, I'm jealous. Oh, to overeat like a normal person.

A couple of hours after everyone around me has eaten, I am almost amused when I pull out my own dinner: A sprouted brown rice and lentil pilaf that just happens to be macrobiotic and vegan, plus an organic orange.I both like this dinner and find it satisfying and even a bit naughty (yes, there are lentils, but it is still mostly carbs) – which may be the most amusing part of all.