Make That 1 for 4

"I'm 0 for 3 for hanging out with Karen," a friend messaged me yesterday.

True enough; he'd forgotten our lunch Friday, I couldn't do lunch yesterday because I was on deadline and he didn't get my e-mail about dinner last night until it was too late.

Today we were going to make it happen, come hell or high water.

Waiting for the perennially late one outside in front of my house, I used the time to pull weeds from the brick sidewalk in front of my garden.

Everything came up easily because of the recent snow and rain, and I tossed the weeds into the street, satisfied in taking care of a chore during a few found minutes.

Bent over and pulling up a particularly large clump of wire grass from around the light post, I look over and see that a cop car has stopped in front of my house.

The window is down and the officers inside the car are glaring at me.

"You know that's illegal, right?" the one in the driver's seat says in a stern police voice.

Gulp. My heart is now pounding like it's going to come out of my chest.

Meekly, I admit that I hadn't known this and was counting on tomorrow's street cleaning to remove the green debris.

"Just kidding!" the cop says. "I told my partner I was going to mess with you when I saw you."

Oh, ha ha. Real funny.

He assured me I was doing nothing wrong, wished me a good day and cruised down Clay Street.

Are my city tax dollars going to comedians or cops?

My friend arrived minutes later and when I told him the story, he laughed long and hard, bent over double at how funny it was to challenge Karen on breaking the law.

I'm sure it's much funnier when you're not the one being reprimanded by men in blue.

Once he stopped laughing at me, we set out on our walk with me taking him by some of my favorite sites - the crooked blue house, the living roof, my broken swing.

As we walked, we tried to decide where to have lunch but he was leaning toward pho (and I wanted more than that) and I was leaning toward a burger (but he'd recently had McDonald's against his will and was uninterested).

Once back at my house, we piled into his large vehicle to go to his bank in Carytown, thereby narrowing down where we might lunch.

When I found out he didn't know about Doner Kebab, our choice was made.

We waited behind a sweet-looking, older couple ordering before deciding on what we wanted, shawarmas both, his beef and lamb, mine chicken and white garlic sauce.

While they were being made, we went to claim seats at the tiny counter that faces Cary Street.

I saw that the couple had already staked their claim on the bar, laying out utensils and drinks, but my friend didn't notice them and sat down in claimed territory.

The nice older man came over and pointed out their stake, suggesting we all share the prime seats for watching the street theater.

It gave me a chance to tease my friend about his obliviousness, small compensation for his earlier belly laughter at my expense.

In an effort to show there was no hard feelings about his seat poaching, Friend showed the couple his malt beverage (non-alcoholic) pomegranate drink with Arabic writing as a way to get conversation going.

It was their first time and they were as happy with their beef/lamb and falafel choices as my friend was with his.

Tasty, cheap, fast, an ideal lunch with strangers.

And, significantly for me, no laws broken while eating it. As if.