BREAKFAST AT THE DINER — #7

135,000 Americans are dead so far, idiots refuse to wear masks, we have riots in the streets, and climate change rolls along, ready to kill us all — yeah, everything on Earth is awful, but Kirstin the waitress
is back slinging hash at the diner.

“And I think to myself, what a wonderful world…”

♦ ♦ ♦

To sidestep the early crowd at the diner, I arrived a little later than last week. Second thing in the morning instead of first, and indeed, there were fewer customers and more empty seats.

Looking around the room, I noticed two 20-something white men, but only because they were sitting with a gorgeous redhead somewhat overdressed, like she’d be headed to the opera after eating her low-budget breakfast.

The diner’s regular clientele includes at least two old men who use walkers to get around. One is bald and frightfully thin, and the other has more flab like me and an amazing bouffant of silver hair rising maybe six inches straight up from his forehead, kinda like this but with wrinkles and gray hair. Bald-Walker was at a table way down at the other end of the room, but Bouffant-Walker was sitting at a counter stool, and he’d left his walker blocking the rather narrow walkway.

My wife used a walker for a while, so I’m familiar with the mechanics and necessities, and wouldn’t begrudge him for blocking the aisle. A walker needs to be within arm’s reach, and while it does take less space if it’s folded, it’s a bitch folding and unfolding one. So I only said, “‘Scuse me, mister,” and turned sideways to squeeze between him and his walker, brushing up against both, to take my favorite seat at the end of the counter.

♦ ♦ ♦

Actually, the coffee told me where to sit. Kirstin knows which seat I like, and she filled my cup while I was gently bumping past walker-guy. She put cream on the counter for me, too.

“Morning, sweetie,” she said. “Our special today is huevos rancheros, and we can make that for you as an omelet if you’d like.” She said this while setting up exactly the jelly, salt and pepper, ketchup, and ice water I never even had to ask for.

“Sounds good,” I answered, “but I’ll have my usual, please.”

Kirstin recited my order from memory, got it exactly right, and jotted it in shorthand on one of those ubiquitous green tickets, which she passed to the guys in the kitchen. I was glad she was back, and glad she’s healthy, but I didn’t say so. An hour later, on my way home, I wondered why I didn’t say so, but I won’t say it next week either.

♦ ♦ ♦

A black man came in, young and muscular and looking like an underwear model, but wearing clothes. Kirstin greeted him by name — she seems to know everyone’s name by their second time in the restaurant. His order was a little complicated; no onions in his omelet, no butter on his toast, and such quibbles. Kirstin took it all down with no difficulties.

Couple of minutes later, Harvey the cook couldn’t be seen, but his voice called out from the kitchen, “Hey, about this Denver omelet?”

There were so few customers, Underwear-Model knew it was his order, and he said, “Yeah? I’m a Denver omelet,” which made me smile. He glanced at me, and smiled too.

Voice from the kitchen: “You wanted no butter on your toast, so are you OK with butter on the grill for your omelet?”

“I’m not allergic,” he says, “Do whatever you think best.”

“Oh, that’s a dangerous thing to say,” said Harvey’s voice from behind the wall. “I might fry your omelet in mayo and tartar sauce.”

♦ ♦ ♦

With only a handful of people scattered inside the diner and nobody near me, for a while there was only one customer whose yakking was inescapable. “She’s so annoying,” some yuppie-guy started, and instantly I knew he was going to be annoying.

Talking to a mostly-mute guy across his table, sure enough, that guy said something dumb and dull every few minutes, before his food came and while he was eating and after his plate was taken away. Not a word of what he said was interesting, but now we all know everything about his very, very annoying sister-in-law. He said he hates her, but I think he’s secretly in love.

♦ ♦ ♦

Being a man, I snuck an occasional gander at that pretty and swanky-dressed woman down the counter. I wasn’t being creepy about it, promise, it’s just — dang.

I was ignoring her two male companions but she wasn’t, and I wondered what was the dynamic there? She was flirting with them both. Man to her left said something, and she said, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Man to her right said something, and she giggled. She was mid- to late-20s, too old to be so giggly, but I’m not typing that with a sneer. Just reporting the facts.

♦ ♦ ♦

A 40-ish white guy was seated at the corner stool where he always sits, and by always I mean always. He owns that stool, I think, and he asked Kirstin the question I didn’t ask. “So where the hell were you last week?”

“Business is slow,” she explained, “so we’re all working four days a week instead of five.”

Bouffant-Walker piped up, “Well, this place is like eating out of my armpit when you’re gone.” Laughter.

“Yeah,” said the guy who owns the corner stool. “You ought to post a schedule or something, so we’ll know what mornings to avoid.”

“My apologies for the armpit,” Kirstin deadpanned, “and next week I’ll be off on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Please make a note of it.”

♦ ♦ ♦

I made a note of it, literally. Several times during any meal at the diner, I put down my fork and lift my pen to scribble something in the margins of my magazine. At my age, the memory’s too feeble to write about breakfast at the diner without notes.

Wonder what I’ll say one of these mornings, when someone asks what I’m writing, and why? “Oh, I just like jotting down the stupid things strangers say in the diner — like what you just said.”

Yeah, that’ll win me some friends. That question will be asked one day, I suppose, so I’ll need an answer that won’t get me beat up. Put that on my to-do list.

♦ ♦ ♦

For a minute and a half out of nowhere, me and Bouffant-Walker and Underwear-Model had a three-way conversation. We were talking about what’s open and what’s closed for COVID-19, and Underwear-Model said, “The parks are all open, but in some parks the restrooms are padlocked.”

“No staff to clean the place,” I said.

“Well, that’s a problem,” said Bouffant. “That could ruin a picnic.”

Next came one of the longest sentences I’ve spoken out loud in months: “They can tell me to wear a mask, but they can’t order me not to take a dump.”

“Yeah,” said Underwear-Model. “When you gotta go you gotta go, like a bear in the woods.”

“I assume you mean the Chicago Bears,” I said, and they both laughed.

That was me faking social skills, but I don’t care about the Chicago Bears, or about football. But this is Wisconsin, where even I know, if you want to get a laugh you say something bad about the Bears.

♦ ♦ ♦

Someone was talking about the pandemic rules and regulations, and Kirstin said, “We can’t have more than ten* customers inside at once,” and then she looked around the almost empty room and added, “which is seldom a problem these days.”

Business at the diner is not what it was before the coronavirus, that’s obvious. If anyone’s reading this, please support your local restaurants that don’t have golden arches.

♦ ♦ ♦

I’d been occasionally but discreetly observing that redheaded woman, and now she and her two men were leaving. They slid masks onto their faces, and she paid the tab for all three of them and said, “Thank you.” Which means, they’re not regulars; else she would’ve said, “Thank you, Kirstin.”

Once out the door, she walked past the diner’s front window, accompanied by only one of her men. The other must have walked toward the parking lot, in the other direction, which saddened my prurient imagination. I was hoping all three of them would have a delightful morning, but as they say, two out of three ain’t bad.

♦ ♦ ♦

No new customers stepped through the door for several minutes, so there was nothing the kitchen needed to cook, and Harvey played the overnight’s accumulated messages off the answering machine. I was at a stool twenty feet away, but the diner is a smallish place and the machine puts out good sound. Everyone in the diner heard every message, clear as a landline.

The first call was about a delivery truck that’s coming tomorrow, which I reckon is today.

The second call was someone ordering two meals for pick-up, steak and potato and a fish sandwich, specific sides and sodas, and the voice finished by saying he’d be there to pick it up at around 4:00. The machine’s timestamp announced that that message had been left yesterday at about three.

Thing is, the diner closes at 1:00, every day. “Hope you enjoyed your meal,” Harvey said with a chortle. “Come back soon!” He pushed a button and the answering machine’s mechanical voice said, “Message deleted.”

The third call was personal, so I won’t repeat the details, but Slim is out of luck for the weekend, and his “Damn it!” carried from the back room.

♦ ♦ ♦

Bouffant-Walker was still on a stool when I left, and his walker was still in the aisle. His breakfast was gone but his coffee wasn’t, and Kirstin was pouring more. Maybe he’s going to ride that stool all day, I thought, drinking the coffee pot dry. There are worse ways to spend a day.

“Adios,” I said, squeezing past and unavoidably nudging him again.

“So long,” he said. “Wash your hands and stay alive.”

“That’s exactly my plan.”

7/10/2020
Republished 2/15/2025

* Correction: A few weeks ago I guesstimated that the diner seats a hundred, but I was as wrong as sin on Sunday. Due to the pandemic, restaurants are currently limited to 25% of capacity, so Kirstin’s comment that the diner is limited to ten customers at once means it seats forty or so. I took a closer look at the diner where I’ve been eating for years, and that number’s about right. ItsDougHolland.com regrets the error. 

Breakfast at the Diner

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