Sometimes I have experiences that teach me something about humanity, and myself, in the strangest places.
Dateline: The Rum Jungle Buffet, in the Casino Fandango, Carson City, NV. Saturday, the middle of November. After a long day on the ski slopes teaching little kids, I'm itching - for some reason - for the typical Las Vegas casino buffet experience, and Carson City is the closest place. Carson City is the intersection of suburbia and the gambling economy. Nestled on the border of Nevada and California east of Lake Tahoe, it is both somewhere and nowhere at the same time, and this is also an apt description of the Casino Fandango. I drive through a strip mall into a deceptively large garage, park, and walk through the cold dry Nevada air into what could be a conference center except for the overly large neon sign advertising a cover band for a band I'd never heard of. Fandango is busy inside; wheels are spinning, lights are flashing. There's less smoke than you would expect and it's actually quieter than you would think, especially in the back towards the restaurant.
The Rum Jungle is tacky, overdone and garish, but for all of that it has a homey feel. I'm there late, about 8:30 PM, and the place is not very busy. A Hispanic man vacuums the floor. He has to keep moving the cord to find a new plug. Fake fans rotate - purely for show - above the extremely well lit containers of food. The food, incidentally, is surprisingly good. I chat with the chef about one dish, a shrimp dish he appears to have invented with cheese and bell peppers. He seems proud, and eager to discuss it.
I sit in a booth next to a family - 3 of them, an older woman, a younger woman and a younger man. I quickly assign them roles - she's the mother, then a daughter and the daughter's boyfriend or husband. I could be wrong, of course. All 3 are overweight. The mother is particularly obese. They are cheery; they're having a good time, and I quickly understand why these sorts of casinos are so ubiquitous. This family - this very normal American lower middle class family - is having a great time, at a cost they can afford.
At one point the mother comes back from the buffet with a full plate, beaming broadly at the other two. I can overhear their whole conversation. "Look," she says, "they have six kinds of falafel! Can you believe that?" The others nod and smile. The mood brightens even more.
This woman - this 50-something woman - is excited because the buffet has six kinds of falafel. This is a person who - I am quite certain - would not go into a falafel restaurant, were there one in Carson City. I would not be shocked if she wasn't entirely clear on what falafel was; this is not a commentary on her intelligence, more to bring up the question: Why is she so excited? What's so positive about the falafel that it should make her so happy?
It's clearly not the falafel. It's not even about food; she has plenty. She is not excited about eastern cuisine. I think the first clue is how excited she is to get back to the table and show the others. The falafel is exciting because she gets to share it with her family. She's actually in a hurry to show them. And they play their parts perfectly; they're excited because she is. This woman would not have been nearly as excited if she was on her own; in fact she most likely wouldn't have come to the buffet at all. And I realize something: she is excited *because she feels important*. The falafel isn't there to be eaten; it's there as a symbol; an indication that, in return for her $22.95, this particular casino at this particular time cares that she is there; in fact, cares so much that they are willing to create six kinds of this exotic dish *just to impress her*. She is impressed *because someone tried to impress her*, and for no other reason. What this woman wanted, and wants, is what we all want: not things, not food nor money, but acknowledgment that we are important, that we matter, that someone cares that we're here and that our opinion is important. She had gathered her family together - and paid - for precisely that feeling.
This, of course, is not big news. We all know this. And yet, we often strive for the falafel of life, confused about what it is we really want and why we want it. What we want is love, and empathy, and affection. Falafel is, at best, the means to an end, but it is that end that I want to strive for. And so, sitting alone in that buffet, I realized that this woman had me beat. She had family.
I only had the falafel.
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