An Onion In A Parking Lot

Early yesterday morning, I was driving when I got an important call. Knowing that this call was one that was going to require me to make a few notes to myself, I looked for a spot to pull over. I spotted a church parking lot just in time to make the turn and pulled in. It was early enough that the whole lot was deserted.

I looked around while I was on my call. There, a few spaces away, was an onion. Nothing else. Just an onion in a parking space.

Focus, Or The Lack Thereof

Twice as distracting as one onion. (Image via Wikipedia)

Stuff like an onion in a parking space disturbs me. My caller and I kicked around the issue of the day and just how we’d address it. I had to be totally focused on the call.  But The Onion kept calling my eyes and attention to itself even though it wasn’t the issue of the day. I worked hard to keep my mind on the call. How would I explain my distraction if the caller picked up on it?

“Well sir, you see, there’s this onion where I am and it’s raising a lot of questions for me.”

Why was it there? The rest of the lot was pristine. It had very obviously been tidied up for the Sunday services. There was nothing else in the parking lot, just me and The Onion. Beyond The Onion, nothing but black top and parking spaces.

Georgia Has Its Peaches, Idaho Is Where Potatoes Come From

What could have been. (Image via Wikipedia)

What state grows all the onions? I don’t know either, but I know it isn’t North Carolina. It came from somewhere else. That means that The Onion was one well-traveled bulb.

Some onion farmer raised The Onion to be part of a salad, grilled to go on a cheese steak sub or perhaps to even be the star of a crock of French Onion Soup.It had so much potential flavor and nourishment. But Destiny had planned a sadder fate for this tangy ball of savory goodness. Planted, watered, raised, harvested, washed, boxed, shipped and bought.

All for naught.

All for naught.

On The Other Hand

What a jerk (Photo copyright me, but seriously, use it however you want)

I am obviously wistful about the plate of onion rings The Onion never was. Just the same, I am not overwhelmed with affection for this particular onion.

Look at the way this onion is parked. What a jerk. He has the whole space available and where is he? All over the line. No one else is going to be able to park there now. I don’t know what state grows all the onions, but I think they have a thing or two to learn about teaching common courtesy.

So what have we learned today? I don’t know. It’s an onion. Alone. Far from home.

That, and I can write five hundred words about one solitary onion.

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