Unexpected Blessings

McNuggets, Dirty Jokes, and Learning to See

“Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so, some people have entertained angels without knowing it.”

~ Hebrews 13:2 ~

His name was Bruce—a fact I discovered only halfway through our one-sided conversation and only after he swiveled his phone in my direction to prove that, indeed, his Facebook account had been locked by, none other than, Facebook itself. To which he shrugged, “I doin’t care. Fug’it ‘em.”

His thick Bostonian accent muddied much of the conversation, along with the facemask covering his mouth and nose. I asked him to repeat his opening line three different times before I finally just nodded with a subtle “Yep” unsure of what I had just agreed to. Whatever he said, my response was met with a jolly giggle as he sat down, one hand leaning on his rolling luggage and the other wiping the Patriots beanie from his head.

I was still holding my Anne Lamott book, both hands hovering over the trash on my tray leftover from the lunch I’d just enjoyed even if I knew later I’d regret it. It had been close to a decade since I’d eaten McDonald’s, but a promo promised a free ten-piece chicken McNugget if I ordered anything over $2. Since a small fry was $2.77, I was dipping childhood memories in sweet sour sauce for under three bucks. Guilt-free, even if a bit afraid of how the meal may treat me throughout the rest of the day.

I glanced back at my book, only to hear a muffled phrase radio in from my new companion.

“I’m sorry?” I asked.

Without a beat, he muttered the phrase again just beyond coherent. I pieced together the cadence in his voice and the expectation plastered on the upper half of his face that he’d incanted a joke behind his mask. Praying it wasn’t of the knock-knock variety, I replied, “What?” He mumbled a punchline, only evident by his laugh punctuating the end of the sentence.

So, I laughed too.

Sometimes my manners usher me into awkward social situations. I never want people to feel unwelcome. Uninvited. Unseen. I’ve had people treat me that way throughout the years, and I vowed long ago never to do the same. It’s not cowardice or mere civility, although both ingredients may be present in the recipe. For me, though, it’s something closer to theology or faith. Something akin to hospitality. A belief that God, through any inconvenience, may spread unexpected blessings.

“Do you like dirty jokes?” he asked peering over his shoulder toward the young woman to his left.

“Well, ummmm…I don’t…”

Before I could politely reject his offer, he tucked his mask under his chin and lowered his voice to a whisper, revealing a toothless grin. To be honest, I still couldn’t make out what he said, but he leaned back with a jocular wail and a smile so wide I could see his childhood self sitting in a desk next to his buddy giggling at some immature wisecrack trying to hide their joy from their humorless teacher.

“Do yu know Rodney Dangerfield?”

I heard him that time. And yes, I confirmed, I had. A scene from my childhood flashed through my mind of the similarly-sized comedian standing on a diving board making childish sounds with has hand under his armpit.

“Back to School,” I remembered. “He was in that movie, right?”

Bruce nodded, barely acknowledging my response, before he launched into a litany of jokes from, what I suspect, was Dangerfield’s standup routine. Each joke paused right before the next to create enough space for laughter, mine always obediently following his.

“Some peoples dun’t know how I remembuh all this,” he beamed. “Do yu know Carlin? George?”

I set my book down, surrendering completely to the moment, and before I could answer, three or more jokes unfurled one right after the other. He laughed. Uproariously. Then, on cue, so did I.

His food arrived. He began to feverishly unwrap his $5 McDonald’s meal, when he surprised me with, “So wha’d ya do?”

“Oh,” I stammered, “well, I’m a professor and a writer.”

“My dowghta-in-law’s a writah, do ya wanna see?”

He reached toward his roller bag, searching for something.

“Shoot,” he muttered, “where’d I pu’ it?”

He pawed at his pockets, patting even portions of his jacket that had no pockets. Finally, he found his phone. Speaking quite loudly, he enunciated with surprising clarity, “Siri, does amazon have a book called Know Him?”

With decided pride, Bruce whipped his screen around. Filling the display was a book’s cover graced by a beautiful sunset stretching over the horizon of an ocean with the silhouette of a dock and the words “Know Him” plastered on the front with white, elegant letters.

“Hur name here is Courney Loney. Bu’ naw its Blackburn, ‘cuz they gat married.”

I nodded and smiled, started to say something encouraging, when I noticed the look on his face shift from pride to pain.

“Yeah,” he pulled the phone back, “I havun’t tawked to ‘em in five years. So…” He looked down, “I juzt dun’t get it.”

I could feel his pain. However muffled. However subtle. It emanated.

“I’m sorry, friend,” I offered.

“Dun’t mattah,” he quipped, “Ya married?”

“Yep,” I nodded.

“Watz she do?”

“Well, my wife’s a chaplain at a hospital.”

“Cun ya believe some peopul dun’t believe in Jesus?” he flew back in shock. “Yu do, right?”

“Indeed,” I nodded.

A wry smile spread across his face as he gummed some of his fries.

“So a pastur got up ta preach wan Sunday, win a cloud fillt thu room und Satan uppeared in thu pulpit. Ev’rywun scattered. ‘Cept wan woman. Satan looct at ‘er end said, ‘Why aren’t you scaird?’ She said, ‘Well, I bin married to yur brotha for forty years!’”

He erupted in laughter, flinging some of the french fry from his mouth on to my hand.

I laughed too. This time fully understanding not just the joke but the sacredness of the moment. The beauty mixed in the brokenness. Not just of Bruce. But of me. A brokenness that bonds us all. A beauty that bids us all “to come and see.”

In that moment, I realized I was in the presence of an unexpected blessing. An unwanted one, really. For I had no intention of speaking to anyone—sitting by myself at my McDonald’s table as sealed off as the woman at the well drawing water midday in the blazing Middle East heat. Yet Jesus sat down with a Patriots Beanie and a covid mask to settle my soul with laughter and languish, jocularity and pain.

I watched him greet McDonald’s workers serving trays and others tending to trash, workers many overlook, including me. But he saw them. Laughed with them. Smiled and spread his unexpected blessing to them and anyone lucky enough to circle into his vicinity.

As two ladies sat down at the table next to us, he immediately brought them into the fold, “Wull, Merry Christmas ladies! Where’ya frum?”

Sheepishly, one answered for both. One Peru and the other Guatemala.

He smiled with an exasperated, “Wow! Wull, welcome to Bawston!”

Over twenty minutes, ten Chicken McNuggets, and a $2.77 small fry, Bruce taught me to see. To see people. To see joy. To see laughter as a weapon to disarm the shy, the scholarly, and the scowls that plague our society. A gift of sight too often overlooked and undervalued. For as Anne Lamott reminds, “Seeing is why we’re here.”

---

---

---