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The "Earning Lunch in Mystic" personal essay operating at the intersection of travel writing and reflective humor, using a minor inconvenience—a delayed lunch—as a lens through which to examine time, distraction, and modern purposelessness.
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Earning Lunch in Mystic
By Harry Arabian
Arrival with Modest Expectations
I arrived in historic Mystic Harbor, Connecticut with one modest ambition: a light lunch at Mystic Pizza Diner. Fate, however, demanded I earn it.
Public parking near the diner was either mythical or aggressively imaginary. After circling long enough to be considered part of the local traffic pattern, I finally spotted an empty parking space near the drawbridge, several blocks away. I took it. Walking builds character, I told myself, and—judging by the hollow feeling setting in—possibly hunger.
A Pleasant Delay
The walk turned out pleasant enough. Tourist traps bloomed on either side, selling nautical knots, T-shirts announcing I HAD BEEN TO MYSTIC, and suspiciously fresh-looking “antique” anchors. Crossing the Mystic River over the bridge felt appropriately cinematic, like the opening shot of a movie where nothing bad happens except mild inconvenience.
I was halfway across, thinking about pizza, when I noticed the first warning sign of my own unreliability: I was suddenly in no hurry at all.
The Object That Stopped Time
In a boutique on Main Street, resting reverently in the window, was what I assumed to be an antique compass—mahogany case, brass fittings, the kind of object that whispers important maritime decisions were once made with me. Lunch could wait. Important-looking objects always slow me down. Naturally, I went inside.
The clerk materialized instantly, cheerful and alert, like someone who had been waiting all morning to explain something.
“Oh, that,” she said, eyes lighting up. “That’s a historic chronometer. Nineteenth century.”
I nodded thoughtfully.
“I thought it was a compass,” I admitted. “I was already picturing myself finding the diner with it.”
She smiled patiently, the way museum docents smile at children who ask if dinosaurs had jobs.
A Lesson in Precision
“Before radio and smartphones,” she explained, “cities needed a visible way to signal the exact time—especially for sailors navigating by chronometers.”
Time. Precision. Exactness. All the things my stomach was currently uninterested in.
I absorbed this, glancing again at the beautiful woodwork.
“Right,” I said. “Timekeeping and technology. Very important. I was mostly admiring the mahogany.”
She looked mildly disappointed but recovered quickly.
Enlightened, Still Lost
I left the shop enlightened, still slightly lost, and now acutely aware that in the nineteenth century I would have made an excellent sailor: late to lunch, but flawlessly synchronized with the rest of the fleet.
Arrival at Last
Eventually, I did make it to Mystic Pizza—hungry, delayed, and keenly aware that I had spent twenty minutes learning how people once told time, instead of using it.
Book Club Summary
ReplyDeleteThis essay follows a narrator’s simple plan to get lunch at Mystic Pizza in Mystic, Connecticut—a plan that quickly unravels due to elusive parking, a pleasant walk, and an unexpected stop in a boutique. What begins as a minor travel inconvenience becomes a reflective, humorous meditation on time, distraction, and modern aimlessness.
Along the way, the narrator encounters a historic chronometer, an object once essential for precise timekeeping in the nineteenth century. The explanation of its importance contrasts sharply with the narrator’s immediate concern: hunger. This contrast highlights one of the essay’s central tensions—the difference between measured, historical time and lived, bodily experience.
Written in a dry, self-aware voice, the essay uses gentle humor and detailed observation to explore how easily we abandon our intentions when curiosity intervenes. The narrator never quite “learns a lesson,” but gains an awareness of the irony in spending time learning how people once synchronized their lives instead of using time efficiently themselves.
Ultimately, the piece invites readers to reflect on their own distractions and detours. It suggests that meaning often emerges not from reaching our destination on time, but from noticing how and why we get sidetracked along the way—especially when lunch is involved.
book club discussion questions:
Time vs. Experience:
How does the contrast between the chronometer and the narrator’s hunger shape the essay’s meaning? What does the piece suggest about how we value time today?
1. The Role of Distraction:
The narrator knowingly delays lunch to explore the shop. Do you see this as avoidance, curiosity, or something else? How do you relate to this impulse?
2. Narrative Voice:
How would you describe the narrator’s tone—self-deprecating, observational, ironic? How does that tone affect your trust in or sympathy for the narrator?
3. Small Stakes, Larger Insight:
Why do you think the author chose such a minor “problem” to anchor the essay? What larger ideas emerge from this small inconvenience?
4. Objects and Meaning:
The chronometer is beautiful but useless to the narrator. What role do objects like this play in the essay, and how do they function symbolically?
5. Ending Without Epiphany:
The essay ends with awareness rather than transformation. Did that feel satisfying to you? Why or why not?