Incongruity

I'm a "people watcher", the kind who loves to sit at an airport and watch the interesting people shuffle by.  Today I went to an Arbys for lunch and, as I approached the front door, I saw a battered old bicycle leaning against the wall with an abominably filthy pillow, blanket, and bags of clothing tied all around it.  My first thought was that it belonged to a street person who was dining at Arbys and did I want to dine in the same room with him.

I entered the restaurant, enticed by the promise of their delicious roast beef sandwich, and looked around the room.  I saw two clean cut couples at separate tables and then a lone but fat man sitting in a corner leafing through what looked like a thousand coupons.  Now, my mind stuttered a little as I tried to envision a fat street person who rode a bike and decided, no, he must be in the washroom.

I ordered my meal and walked near the lone man to get my soda and caught a whiff of terrible as I got close to him.  I didn't want to stare but my curiosity made me take note of a very filthy man in his 50's sorting through tons of coupons, some of which hung out of his t-shirt pocket.  He had two little cups of something in front of him which I assumed he'd bought there.

As I ate my sandwich and fries, feeling guilty for being able to afford them,  he began to talk and giggle a bit.  Poor man, I thought, he's so ill...then I snuck a peek to see if he was really talking to a person and saw that he was talking into a cell phone.  Street people don't use cell phones, do they? 

This continued until I finished eating and left the restaurant, still wondering what his story was.  People are so interesting!