They Picked A Good Restaurant, Anyway

The other night, we were at this steak restaurant. We ordered steaks, of course. It was a good time. Nothing huge to report. Except...

Well, there was this other group there. We didn't see them eating, but we saw them when they left, and then when we left, they were disbursing. It was weird enough to comment on.

We watched them walk out. There were about 20 of them, mostly women up to age 45, and young men, none of whom were over 25. Not that weird, but yet they were. As they left, the guys left first, all in a group of maybe 7 or 8. Then the women left in groups of 4 to 6, but they all walked close together, almost hanging onto each other. That was sort of weird, too. But here's the really weird part. Most of them had the same haircut, and they were wearing new clothes, and seemed pretty unsure of themselves.

I made a joke at the time, that they must have been part of the evacuees from Eldorado, TX. The Mormon splinter group who were raided for practicing polygamy and various other...dirty old man deviancies.

Well, it was a joke at the time, but after looking at them more closely, I'm not so sure I was off the mark about who they were.

The haircut. It looked like a haystack. Even one of the guys had it, like he sat down in the wrong chair, or didn't know a guy shouldn't wear a "shag."

The really had no idea what they were doing. All sheep, no shepherd.

They arrived in only three, maybe four van-type vehicles.

There were no children with them. There were NO older men. They weren't a work group, because people who work together don't touch each other much (if at all) and don't act like they don't know what's going on. They weren't from a local church, because there are always several male Pastoral types with a group like that, and in this group, there was an ominous absence of Pastoral guidance. And in a church group, a couple of somebodies always drag their kids along.

If they were evacuated from that polygamous hellhole, they have my sympathy. I can't imagine how it could be, to try to adjust to the real world. I just don't know.

I started out thinking this story might be funny, but it isn't.