A Lunch Story

This afternoon I had the most interesting lunch companion.

I was sitting at the window counter of Great Harvest Bread Company when I saw an older Asian homeless woman walking by. She was pushing a Sears shopping cart and I found that sort of amazing because Sears is in the mall. I figured it would take much more effort to acquire a Sears shopping cart as compared to one from Longs or Foodland (that's our local grocery store, don't you love the name?)

As I'm pondering this woman's choice in shopping carts, she turns her cart around, parks it right in front of the store and walks in. I immediately think, "Oh no, this isn't going to be good." But it was all fine. While she appeared to be homeless she also appeared to be very clean. She simply walked up to the counter and asked for samples of the free bread they offer. I was pleased to see that the cashier was happy to give her the bread. She, with her two slices of bread, sat two seats from me at the window counter.

I'll be honest and say that I wondered if I should get up. I very graciously could have moved away from her and chosen to eat my lunch elsewhere. But I was comfortable and she seemed nice so I stayed put. I am so very happy I did.

She immediately struck up a conversation with me. Well, actually she just started talking to me. First she told me how wonderful the store smells in the morning when they make the bread. Then she took a good look around the store and announced it to be "a good place."

And then it got interesting. She launched into a story about how she had an auntie who was Scottish and related to the Queen who used to try to give her gold Scottish coins.

She said she'd been downtown trying to collect a check. She has to come downtown because she has no residential address. Even though her brother, who is not really her brother, offered that she could use his address, she doesn't trust it. Because "bad stuff happens."

And how she was just in Chinatown looking for her uncle who had died. He was FBI. And the FBI was trying to figure out how he died. "China FBI."

She also told me she had inherited a small building nearby but she never got the paperwork for it. "People say, 'oh, that's the building they're trying to give you.' But I never could find it."

She started to tell me about an architect friend who had worked with her architect husband Nathan. The friend was married and lived in Italy where he worked at the university and knew the King and his family.

She made sure I knew that even though she looks "Oriental" that she's a mix. She has Scottish and Swedish and other mixes. And that's a problem because some of the sons (hers or other's I wasn't clear) don't recognize her as the mother because she doesn't look like them. But China knows. Because China was watching. Even still, if she had eight kids, the geneticist said one would have blue eyes.

She sounds crazy, right? I have no doubt that she's not all there. But the way she spoke was so calm and precise. She was clearly very educated and knowledgeable in her early life. And it occurred to me that maybe all these stories were part of her coping mechanism, some sort of hope that she would some day not be homeless. So much of her discussion had to do with Kings and money.

She told me she her father was a king and she was one of his 200 recognized children, even though he had over 1,000. And she has a brother whose name is the same as her father's, but he's not really her brother.

And how she was suppose to get a check as the last surviving relative of her grandfather. The check was for $6 million but even though she waited outside for it, someone else took it and cashed it at the main branch downtown. And that isn't right.

She's also supposed to get $300,000 every year. But then she doesn't.

And she has a look-alike, a twin who lives in Manoa. But is very bad and isn't really her sister, she just changed her name.

Even though she had all these millions coming to her I figured maybe she needed something to get by. So I asked her if she needed money right now and she agreed she did because of the multiple check fiascos. I gave her the one dollar bills in my wallet and wished her a nice day. She continued on about the building she'd inherited and how she should really find it and how the Kings would like her to have it. I just waved and walked out.

Typically I think I would find this all to be very sad. But this woman was so sweet and earnest and honestly seemed to be managing fine. She was beautiful and had character and these stories seemed to make her feel valued. So I'm happy I let her tell me about them.