Senior Citizen Brunch

What do you think of when you hear the word "brunch?" A nice restaurant with food stations full of warm, delicious breakfast and lunch items? The Finnish Center holds a very different type of brunch at their facility on the second Sunday of each month. Irma loves to attend, mostly, I think, to socialize with her old Finnish friends. Nancy, the boys, and I like to go mainly for amusement. Personally, I love senior citizens, but you cannot even begin to imagine the chaos that erupts when the average age of the folks in charge of an event is 85. We arrived at the Finnish Center today, and the hostess, Edith (age 80-something), gave us numbers to hold our place in line. There were six of us, and Edith worked for about ten minutes trying to find consecutive numbers in her pile of homemade cardboard numerals. Frustrated, she finally just handed us 11-15. And 5. The food is supposed to be served beginning at 11:30 a.m., and today it was 12:20 p.m. when the cooks were at long last ready to start. Edith shouted loudly into her microphone (yes, she loves speaking into her microphone even though the luncheon area is quite small and her voice doesn’t really need any amplification) for everyone “to settle down.” The low mumbles of conversation amongst the elderly were barely audible, but apparently Edith wanted everyone’s complete attention. She announced that brunch was ready, and numbers one through four could proceed to the buffet line. And just to reiterate, she stated, “That’s one . . . two . . . three . . . and four.” These earsplitting broadcasts continued throughout the entire meal. The food available at the brunch leaves something to be desired, and I don’t usually eat the breakfast fare because cold eggs, undercooked French toast, and raw sausage do not appeal to me. Today they offered chicken a la king, which I ate and enjoyed. Nancy went through the buffet at the end of our group of six, and had to wait about five extra minutes when they ran out of plates. The senior citizen workers just stood around flummoxed as to how they might solve that problem, and, remember, Nancy was only number 16 to go through the food line. Eventually, more plates were located, much to the relief of the 40 or so other people who had not yet eaten. We got our food, paid the 90-year-old cashier, then traded knowing shrugs & sighs with the few other under-70-year-old people who were in attendance. There is nothing like a roomful of elderly Finns to make you feel young!