Queso with Strangers: How Moe's Made My Day

Today was not an unusual day, except that Moe's Southwest Grill was giving out free queso. And really, any day when something as expensive and addictive as queso is free is most definitely a day to write on the calendar and love thoroughly. I'm a thrifty gal, and of course I couldn't justify driving 25 minutes to the nearest Moe's just to get a free something that isn't exactly good for the waistline.

Thank heaven I remembered I had to lesson-plan and do some grocery shopping.

Sarah (la sister) objected that she had lesson-planned at Moe's last time so we young, aspiring teachers parked in the no-man's bit of the strip mall and popped into Starbucks. Unfortunately Starbucks - which also boasts the qualities of being expensive and addictive - wasn't having a Come Love Us Because We Give You Nice Things For Free day.

Boo-hoo and sob. 

Since I'm not being paid for teaching right now, my wallet was quite literally empty except for a plethora of dimes and quarters; I would like to say paying with change is hipster or preppy, but it's neither: it's penny-pinching college-student at its most honest. (And I'm not even in college. Oh boy.)
    I fumbled with my coins, trying to sift the dimes from the pennies and willing it all to come to $4.22 (Please explain why those divine Raspberry Mochas cost your birthright). Sarah finally took pity on me and handed me a couple quarters to help out. The poor dude behind the counter waited patiently and didn't laugh at my teetering stacks of coinage piled on the counter; he actually told me it was all right that I was holding up the entire joint. (I'm not sure I believed him.) Raspberry mocha in hand, I retreated to the outdoor patio where I was soon buried in the delights of planning how to teach a passion for writing to my young students.
    The sun was warm and jovial, and life was good despite my new position as Queen of Awkward; in fact, I had pretty much decided that it couldn't get any better when a young Asian man wearing sunglasses came from across the parking lot with a bag from Moe's and established himself--queso, burrito, laptop and all--at a table nearby. I chattered to Sarah about this and that (probably in a louder tone than I realized, being the talkative sort.) She answered with a lazy, comfortable monosyllable now and then.

 "Come on," I said, "Just let me know when you're finished so we can go to Moe's and get our free queso." I didn't think anyone was listening--aren't I the only one who notices other peoples' conversations?

The Queen of Awkward was wrong, of course.

Our neighbor turned around with the hugest, friendly grin and raised his cup of queso in the air like Bacchus's horn. "Yeah! You really should go get some.
    I started laughing, which is my way of saying "You totally just made my day right now," and Queso-Man joined in.
  "You know," he said with another dazzling smile, "it's not very crowded over there right now. You should go." And he turned back to his laptop and resumed his lunch, and life should have proceeded as normal.

 Except for me it didn't. For me, it was one of life's lightening-bolt moments. He and I laughed over the oddity of being fellow free-queso-lovers, and in that laughter something transferred; some tiny, fragile, gossamer connection. One slender thread linking perfect strangers together: a moment woven into timelessness.
And now I want to be that person who holds a vat of queso aloft like a champagne flute and butts into a conversation. I want to spend the tiny moments of life like a sociable spider making webs of a thousand infinitesimal connections. People complain of wandering through their lives in aimless solitude; they vow the world is vacant and void - and so it might seem to a webless spider.
  But the guy with the smile and the queso knows different; he knows, as I've learned, that community is not a lumped-together achievement that comes one day and lasts the rest of your life. Community is a thousand threads spun from a thousand moments. It's the thing that keeps us connected in our frail humanness. It's love - the practical love Jesus always had the time for...my queso was the Canaanite woman's jug of water. The spider's web is an intricate thing and it does take work. It's talking to a person you've never met before about the simplest, most silly thing like queso, or the weather, or someone else's electric-yellow platform heels. My partner-in-amusement had no way of telling that I was feeling penniless, awkward, and ashamed of my blood-from-a-stone Raspberry Mocha; all he knew was that he liked queso and so did I, and it was worth the effort of spinning one more thread.

 So here's to smiling at strangers. Here's to outdoor tables, awkward moments, Asian gentlemen, unexpected connections, community, boldness, and the simple, over-looked bits of life.

Here's to free queso.