Dinner at 7:30

Julie sat alone in the semi-circle booth at the small round table by herself. She sat away from the table, as if she was melting into the floor. Her body pressed into the cushioned booth seat.

She stared at the lone candle burning slowly in the center of the circular table. The flame fought its battle against the darkness of the restaurant. Julie fought against the urge to touch the still burning and painful flesh around her eye.

She waited. She checked her watch: 7:30. Her parents would arrive soon.

She touched her right eye, wincing. Her fingers gently probed the taut, puffy smooth skin.

She wondered what her parents would think. It suddenly occurred to her that arriving first was not the best decision; it was a terrible decision. She thought she could avoid a scene by not making her own entrance. But how was this alternative – giving her parents the long walk between here and the door - better. She reached to her right and rifled through her purse, forgot what she wanted, and gave up.

Maybe the darkness would shade most of the bruising. Julie began pecking through her purse but gave up, decided it was too dark to locate whatever she might have wanted to find.

Her stomach growled, but she wasn’t hungry. She realized she was inhaling quick, short, ragged bursts and tried consciously taking longer breaths. She removed her hand from the warm flesh of her eye and placed it on the cool smoothness of her water glass. She ran her finger up and down the slick, condensating surface. She gave up on breathing altogether.

Movement caught her eye and she looked up from the table. Even in the dim light she could recognize the figure coming toward her, her mother’s shoes clip-clopping along the floor as she closed the distance in a controlled power walk.

Julie tried not to raise her head, tried to avert her eyes, but it was too late. Once her mother caught her eyes the facade of control disappeared and she covered the last bit of distance in an explosion of clips and clops. Couldn’t she have worn quieter shoes, Julie thought to herself.

Her mom grabbed Julie’s head in her hands. Julie could see her mother’s eyes wet with emotion as her mother leaned in too kiss her eye. Not even the darkness of this place could hide her eye at that distance.

“Oh my god.” Julie’s mother pulled away, taking a deep breath. “What did he do to my baby?” she wailed, stroking Julie’s eye.

Her father arrived at the table. “Oh, would you quite it. I told you. That kind of treatment is exactly why she’s in the place she’s in.” In his navy-blue suit he was nothing but a large shadow in the darkness minus a dissected V of white where his tie cut through his collared shirt.

Julie's mother shot a look in Julie’s father’s direction, but otherwise didn’t seem to hear him.

Why, its like comparing two things from the same category!

"That's like comparing apples and oranges."

Its a statement meant to convey the idea that the two things you are discussing are can't be compared. That subect/item A is so different from subject/item B that any analysis or comparisson is rendered irrelevant or moot.

But the use of this line is one of my pet peeves (or annoyingly overthought ideas, take your pick) and I take some pride in being one of the few who oppose its use. Because rephrased, the speaker is saying "that's like comparing two fruits."

And why couldn't you compare two fruits? When you go the grocery store, don't you decide between purchasing apples or oranges? If you were going to the store to buy food, you'd compare apples and oranges as options, where as you wouldn't compare apples and say cereal, or milk, or bread. So you can compare apples and oranges at the macro level of food. But you can also compare them at the micro level of fruit.

In actuality, unless you go so micro as to include only "apples" or strictly "oranges" as your category, apples and oranges are entirely comparable.

Its like comparing baseball and football as sports. Both are games, both are sports. Comparable. Sure, the NFL and AFL versions are both football, but that doesn't exclude a comparison between football and baseball. Now, you would never compare football to say house cleaning, or writing, or painting.