"There's a place where I can go ..."
... The Beatles, There's A Place
There's a place where I can go for
breakfast
by myself sometimes when there's a
free
day on my calendar. I also sometimes go there when a scheduled day is
due to start late. It's a diner known to and mostly frequented by the
local townsfolk of Napa, the village in the
wine country
in California where I live. It's definitely not on the tourist circuit.
You'd have to be told about it. There's table
service,
and there's also a long counter where patrons sit on bar stools. I like
to sit at the counter.
Whenever I go there, I always order the same egg and spinach dish, and
a bottomless cup of coffee to go with it. Sometimes I take a USA
Today newspaper with me and do seven of its eight daily
puzzles
(eschewing
one, the so-called Txtpert) while I'm enjoying my
breakfast.
Sometimes I take my
Lenovo L440
ex-IBM laptop computer
and
work
on these
Conversations For
Transformation,
sporadically
watching
the chefs slinging hash from the
open
grill in front of me, and taking in the passing people show. I enjoy
going there. It's one of my favorite things to do when I have
uninterrupted
time
to myself.
There's only one feature I dislike about the place. It's the grumpy
waitress with the bluish tinted hair. Oh, she's very
grumpy. I don't enjoy it when she
serves
me. I always smile at her. But it doesn't do me any good: she's always
grumpy and rushed with me. She's irritable. It's like she doesn't want
to be there, and it's like she certainly doesn't want to
serveme. I try to be nice, but she gives me the impression I'm
getting
in the way of her doing something else she'd much rather be doing.
She never
looks
me in the
eye.
And even though she's
served
me umpteentimes
before, she never acknowledges me or even seems to recognize me. She
never says "Hello!". No, it's worse than that. It's if I greet her, she
doesn't seem to hear: she ignores me and
looks
away. She's cold. She doesn't reciprocate my warmth. And I hate leaving
her a
tip
- yet I do: as a duty because I'm such a nice
guy.
But she doesn't deserve it (which the mutter mutter in my
head constantly reminds me of).
I
watch
her
serving
the other patrons. She's like that with them too. When she
serves
them, they all try to make nice with her - with the same predictable
results as I
get.
Then they
look
around disbelievingly, roll their
eyes,
and shrug as she leaves. Why she's allowed to
work
there, is a total
mystery
to me (mutter mutter mutter).
After an intolerable number of occasions of her being like that, I
became inured to it ie hardened to it. In spite of myself, I stopped
looking
at her. I gave up greeting her. When she'd grumpily ask for my order, I
gave it to her in as few monosyllabic
words
as
possible
through gritted teeth, then went back to my USA Today
puzzles.
One day, just as I was about to place my order and she was
standing
in front of me (and I was wishing this part of the arduous ritual would
be done with quickly), something came over me. I don't know what it
was, but whatever it was, I was no longer willing to
tolerate the situation. One minute I was willing to tolerate it / the
next minute I wasn't. I
looked
up at her and, instead of avoiding
eye
contact, put a
big
smile on my
face,
and said (loudly and warmly) "Well, good
morning
Flo!".
If you've ever seen the classic double take they do in the
cartoons, that's exactly what she did. She blinked, turned
away, then her head whipped back around, and she stared incredulously
at me ... then, so faint it was barely perceptible at first, just the
tiniest hint of a smile creased her lips, and she said
"Good
morning
Sir! What can I
get
you today?" softly, in a nervous stammer. And then she just stood
there, pencil poised on her pad,
looking
at me, maintaining
eye
contact,
waitingpatiently.
I exhaled audibly, now in a state akin to disbelief - but for the
opposite
reason.
I gave her my usual order, this
time
animatedly and excitedly. "Coffee?" she then asked (another
miracle:
she never asked before: she just poured, then left). "Oh
would you please?" I said, then after she'd
filled my cup, "Thank You so much!". "You're welcome Sir!" she
said, smiling warmly,
looking
at me intently, then
walked away
... and then turned around and
looked
back at me, again incredulously.
Flo and I now have a great
relationship
ie a totally
newrelationship.
The grumpy waitress with the bluish tinted hair is now a
completelytransformed
person - at least, she is when she
serves
me (and I'm not just a
"guy
in a diner" about this ...). Now when she
serves
me, she's
present,
she's
alive,
she's smiling and
attentive,
and she maintains
eye
contact. She's cleaned up her
act
with me. And I swear my
breakfast
even tastes better as a result - and it tasted pretty darn good before.
Amazingly, she may also have cleaned up her
act
with the other patrons too. But I can't say for sure: the thing is they
may have to clean up theiract
with her first.
