Plate-collector

The plate-collector can't be far short of seventy. A dishcloth fashioned for a head-scarf. More than half bent. Slippers five sizes too big. Inching over the tiles using her trolley as a walking aid. None pay her regard. Wiping the table while two beefheads continue their conversation giving her no mind at all. Reaching across them, still they don't see her. At our table earlier she had refused assistance. First one item, then another. No. Then inexplicably she had motioned toward the plate to the side of Nance, calling for that. Perhaps it was because of gender. Possibly she expect no male to ever lift a finger. And nor will she accept anything from them. Yet a few minutes later the Caucasian coke-drinking lad obliges her in some way that was missed. A Thank You might have come from her, something of that order. All rather puzzling. Let's see what happens with us as next cab off the rank again now that the meal is done.... But no. She circles away, wheeling off around the corner. Not through to the DISHWASHING AREA however. Doing better than the lavatory attendant perhaps. Despite there being a coin operated turnstile, this woman presumably supervises the tissue paper, cleaning too. Her seat is beside the the narrow entry. Cleaning the spills has to fall within her ambit. A pouch worn low slung on her hip for the coin. The other still not making a reappearance...... There she goes. Unsure from where she could have appeared. A real stagey entrance. Style all her own in everything she performs. NO to the first plate. Nance's move toward her plate to help her also receives a decisive NO. The plastic "Pure Soy Organic Soya Powder" container with the straw - that she deigns not only to accept: this she calls for. Nance adjusts obligingly. Only then, in her own special order, does she collect the other items one by one, scraping, tossing, sorting cutlery as she knows. Dishcloth rinsed out in a veritable soupy swill in her container attached to the trolley, before she moves to the table surface. NO once again to moving the diary. This she wants to remain in place. She wipes around it. Two-three passes this way and that. That'll do. No more. (Rather a strong resemblance to Kunie Yoshimoto as she will be in another thirty years.)