Rule # 487:

Don’t ask complete strangers if you can have some of their food – unless you’re starving to death.


I didn’t even know I had this rule, until someone violated it.

Last Friday, Katie, Rachel and I went over to the Friday Night Sing-A-Long at the Disney Concert Hall. As is our custom, we brought a picnic dinner, and started to eat while we waited in line. We had a lovely spread of hummus with pita chips and veggies, grapes and two different desserts. We were sitting at a little table eating our snacks and this lady walks up and says, “Which one of you has the bottled water”? In my head I was thinking “the one of us that prepare and brought it”, but instead I offered her an extra bottle. She took it and then went back and sat down and drank the water.

I tried not to show it, but I was internally a little disturbed by this. I mean, you just don’t do something like that, right? It would be different if we came across each other while wandering through the Mojave Desert, and she was dying of thirst or something. But to just come right up and ask (when we’re clearly not dying of thirst in the desert), just seemed so inappropriate.

And that isn’t even the best part of the story! A few minutes later, she walked back up to us and asked, “Is that hummus?” (only she pronounced it wrong). Seriously! Now you’re going to ask for some of our hummus!! But of course, being the nice girls we are, Rachel offered some to her. Then she asked for a napkin, reached in to the bag of pita chips and lined them all up on her hand. Then she dolloped the different flavors of hummus on each chip, went back to her chair and ate up!

It was so weird to me that someone would do that. Then of course, she comes and sits right next to us during the Sing-A-Long. Luckily she made friends with the people on the other side of her. Oh, I forgot to mention the sparkly pink grocery bag that she rolled up and placed as a bow on her head AND the very, umm…enthusiastic dance she did to Walkin’ on Sunshine! Luckily she didn’t ask for any of the S’mores Bites or the Mississippi Mud Pie Brownies we had. Trust, me, when it comes to chocolate – I wouldn’t have been as willing to share!!

So again, let me reiterate Rule #487… Don’t ask complete strangers if you can have some of their food – unless you’re starving to death.