Oblivious

This afternoon, I deposited DMTC's weekend take at Bank of America, and crossed the street to eat lunch at the Alhambra & K St. 'Del Taco.' There was no line at the counter, so I was able to quickly order and then take a seat at a small table in the dining area. Even before I could unfold and start reading today's Wall Street Journal, however, the order was ready. So fast! Apparently the fast food crew had been idle: the rainy afternoon must have scared off the normal, fairly scruffy 'Del Taco' clientele.

I picked up my order, sat down, started reading and eating, and fell into my usual, bovine lunchtime oblivion, caught up in the latest Wall St. insurance scandal, John Kerry's understanding of terrorism, and half a dozen other pertinent issues of the day. Two young African-Americans, a man and a woman, stood near my table. The man suddenly announced: "Paramedics are here!"

I looked up, and EMTs were swarming into the restaurant. A fire truck and an ambulance had materialized in the parking lot, where seconds before there had been none. The woman asked the man, "Did you call 911?" The man nodded yes, and she put her hand up over her mouth, as if to suppress laughter - maybe absurd laughter about the size of the official response??? Meanwhile, I'm sitting there with a stupid smile on my face, suddenly distracted from the pressing issue of inadequate help for the developmentally-disabled in poor counties in Ohio, and thinking: "What the HELL is going on?"

I looked left, and clearly visible just fifteen feet from my table, a man, perhaps homeless, lay on the floor. He had apparently been there the entire time, in some kind of acute distress, but in my food and information frenzy, I had somehow utterly failed to notice him.

The paramedics propped up the man, quizzed him, and ultimately decided to take him to the hospital. I guess it wasn't just the weather that had spooked the clientele, but I had been grateful for the short line at the counter, and never considered other possibilities.

I'm still startled about how little attention I had paid to my immediate surroundings. How many other things happen all the time, right under my nose, that I somehow completely miss? I feel like a grazing dinosaur in a tropical Cretaceous world, not noticing the approaching asteroid, even as it obscures the sun and scatters the birds....