Today I was having lunch with my girlfriend, Miriam, at the deli near work.

There are two small tables with a few chairs flanking the main entrance. At one table sat a pleasant looking man in his 50s; the other table was empty save for a bottle of Sobe.

As we placed our lunch on the seeming empty table a woman came outside and said to us, “Excuse me, I was sitting there.” She sat down and was later joined by another woman, neither one of them said a word to each other the entire time.

OK, OK, no problem. I picked up our things and was looking to sit elsewhere when the man sitting alone said, “You can sit here with me, if you like.”

And so we did.

We smiled and laughed and chatted as we ate our meals. The man was very nice and had led an interesting life. His descriptions of Colorado had us mesmerized.

And when the conversation turned towards, “Where are you from?” the man let us know that he was from Oklahoma.

“I knew you weren’t from California,” I said. The man smiled and asked me how I could have known that.

“Because you offered to let us sit at your table.”