The world has changed in so many ways.
Our greeting rituals have changed – elbow taps, foot shakes or a gentle thumbs up. I saw two people hug the other day and nearly fell off my chair until I realised they were an item.
We touch things with our elbows, we are no longer offended when people avoid us in the street, we cough with guilt and dare we sneeze in public.
Yet, as I sat in a restaurant the other day, I must admit I felt comforted by the humble tablecloth. Then I thought that this long-held ritual of ours to eat from a piece of cloth was at risk of becoming victim to our new world.
Because, you see, the tablecloth is one of those things that can be deemed as not necessary. People touch them, they leave germs on them, and they are therefore not needed – a health risk, if you like.
Release the material placemat into extinction, they’ll say.
I do however, like sitting at a table with a cloth. I feel civilised. I feel like I’m not roughing it. I feel like I can take a moment to myself or those I’m with without distractions from the outside world.
Sounds ridiculous, right? That a tablecloth can relax me, that it can add to the experience dining out provides.
I’m the type of person who appreciates the cutlery, takes note of the patterns on the bowls, checks that the glasses haven’t been dishwashed to within an inch of their liquid-holding lifespan.
I like the detail, and a piece of butcher paper or a bare table over dinner doesn’t always do it for me.
Standards plummet for a cafe breakfast – no tablecloth required there. Lunch is mood driven. But sometimes, just sometimes, I want a touch of escapism that only a tablecloth can provide.
Yeah I get it – first-world problems.
But maybe it’s not really about tablecloths at all. Maybe it’s just a little bit of symbolism, a little bit of me that doesn’t want to let go of an old fashioned, if not nostalgic, part of my life.
Just a little sub-consciously driven part of me that doesn’t want the world to change. Not too much anyway.
