What's taking you so long?

Right off the bat I have to thank the commenter who suggested I rather than don a pretty dress for the next photoshoot should bundle up with a pair of floral-patterned boxing gloves. If I wandered around with a chorus, they would have sung "spot on"!

Anyhow, this isn't what today's post was supposed to be about, but sometimes you just have to go with the flow. And speaking of that, what's with slow eaters? Imagine you're part of a party of about twenty people, sitting in a restaurant, and that nineteen of you have finished your appetizers. Imagine that you've all come directly from work, and that you're all starving. Imagine that this last person eating, is doing so very sporadically, labouriously slicing up of another miniscule forkful, endlessly chewing said morsel, pausing artificially between mouthfuls - and that this person has barely got through half her plate. It's not that this person doesn't like the food - oh no! - he/she is savouring it. Roll that verb around your mind for a bit. Savouring. It's rank with judgement, no?
Imagine that the wine glasses are almost empty, the waiters are waiting with new wines for your next course, you're all just waiting, eyeing the slow eater's plate, hoping he/she'll notice. But no. This person is taking forever, and implying that the rest of you just gorge, bolting down this savour-worthy meal. Imagine the attitude, nose-in-the-air: I'm savouring my meal.
Imagine that the waiters are hovering - surely his/her food is cold by now - and that conversation at the table is beginning to get strained. Everybody else is hungry. Everybody wants more delicious food. Everyone else has committed wholeheartedly to the deadly sin of gluttony, and is moving rapidly toward that other dreaded sin of lust (just think of the smell of a rich dark chocolate fondant and you'll know what I mean). And you know what? I'm like you. I love life, and food, so I eat quickly. In short, I'm a greedy bitch. But you know what? A fine dinner morphing me into a gluttonous, lusty, greedy animal with knife-and-fork-skills sounds like a bloody great night out to me. And moreover, life is there to be lived and the best moments can't be drawn out artificially.

So what to do? Well, I think the best comment I've heard so far is one hungry diner taking charge, and suggesting to the slow eater that impersonations of Gollum should be kept to the afterparty. What are your experiences?