You might want to read the first Idiosyncrasy before this one.

Again having to take the car to the shop, I made the walk across the street from the repair shop to the lovely diner with that nice waitress. This time I was not so shocked to see her although I was seated by someone else, I took a quick look around and spotted her cleaning up some plates near where the other lady was taking me. I sat, looked at my menu and contemplated lunch. This time I was a little more prepared. I was hungry for lunch and a meal was in order. She brought me water, and I politely refused having anything else to drink and ordered a turkey sandwich. She asked me if I wanted a soup or a salad. I honestly didn’t want either but for some reason the option of neither didn’t seem like a choice. I had to pick one or the other, at least that’s what it seemed like at the time. I chose a salad thinking it was less costly than a cup of soup and then she asked about dressing. Rather than have her ramble off the five or six dressing they had, two of which were probably ranch, I said, “No dressing”. Not sure why I was able to choose nothing this time but it seemed to make sense. Save the dressing for those who actually wanted salad, as if there were only a few spoonfuls in the back. She smiled politely and made her way to the back to put in my order. I took out a book and began reading. I was reading the City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal. Soon thereafter my salad showed up. I looked at it as if someone had dropped off a physics book at my table. Mildly interested but puzzled that it was there. I wasn’t really up for a lesson on velocity and objects in motion. However I kind of did sign up for the physics so I should at least take a look at a few formulas. I took a few bites avoiding the white parts of the lettuce and, after it looked like I had attacked the salad, I stopped and moved my fork back to the napkin on the table, pushing the salad bowl away to that “I’m done with this” position on the table.

I was sitting in a separated booth. The kind where booths align a center wall and a piece of frosted glass sits between your booth and the adjacent booth. The wall almost always making the other peoples’ head-tops visible so you have an awareness of them and, in combination with their voices, you can figure out how stupid they are. I suppose their voices would do just fine but the tops of their heads are a bonus. Three ladies sat across the wall from me and began to chat about nonsense. I shouldn’t say chat, they began to gossip. I’m not very big on gossip; in fact I try to avoid it as much as possible. It is one of the most dangerous things in modern society. It can turn a single mom into a whore and an effeminate man into a pedophile or a misunderstood teen into a monster. Despite having a truthful foundation or not, the purpose is almost always malicious. As they spoke of ordinary people, doing things they seemed appalled at, their waitress came over. They had the really pretty waitress that looks like she is in community college and making tips to pay for the weekend bar trips. They seemed to know each other and began talking; this is when I realized that all these ladies were somehow related, despite arriving at different times to the restaurant. The oldest had arrived first, then the other two ladies but the other two were wearing name tags and looked like they were on their lunch break. I took a quick glimpse over the wall as if to find out what the GDR was plotting. They were employed at the grocery store down the way. After chatting up the waitress a bit they finally ordered. All three had cheeseburgers medium rare, fries, two cokes and one diet. They all had taken a good long look at the menu as if to contemplate this choice intently. I wondered if they ever intended to get anything other than a cheeseburger. My guess is probably not. What was more interesting was the diet coke. Why bother getting a diet coke when having a cheeseburger, are you really looking to cut calories, ‘cause that is probably not the best way to do it. Maybe she’s diabetic, I thought. After reading a bit I wondered if anyone else in the place had not ordered a soda (I’ll save the coke, soda, pop debate for another day). Water used to be in big fashion but it seems that it is falling out. I took a quick glance around and was slightly disgusted to see every table with a glass half-full of black bubbling liquid. In the corner I saw one that was clear and breathed a small sigh of relief, only to be disappointed to see it bubble too. I made a small pledge to myself not to drink a soda again until I saw a stranger drinking water in a restaurant by choice, as if I had made a silent protest against Coke, Pepsi and all the others. In my resolved thoughts of metaphorically chaining myself to water, my turkey sandwich arrived. The waitress smiled and asked if I wanted more water or anything else. I took her up on the water and declined the anything else.

I forked my vegetable medley, removing the lima beans so I could get the rest down. I ate my food in between paragraphs of the book. All the time trying to block out the inane chatter of the adjacent table. At one point they looked across the wall and asked me what I was reading, apparently one of them was in community college and was taking an English class. I knew that this conversation was either going to be entertaining or possibly get ugly. I raised my book and flashed the cover at them for a few seconds. Not surprisingly, none of them knew the book or the author. So then comes the instigating question, “What’s the book about”, the collegiate asked. I had a simple choice to make, say it was a coming of age tale about a boy in search of a friend or say it was about a young boy being gay in the 40’s in search of his first boyhood lover that had moved away. The first answer would get me a polite response and I could probably put my head down after a few more answers and finish my meal. The second could go a number of ways. Not knowing the outcome of the second answer I chose it, simply because I didn’t know how that story ended. After giving them that synopsis, they all stared blankly at me for a second and then they began to look at their bread plates. The collegiate then asked, “Is it good?” I told her it was excellent so far and that if she was interested in English, Gore Vidal is definitely an author she should look into. She told me she was only getting her Associates in something, I forget what, as it wasn’t very interesting. She nodded politely, while the other two had stopped looking in my direction. Luckily their waitress had come with refills on their sodas. They took the opportunity, as I, to end our conversation. I found the whole thing kind of funny, and I reveled in my intellectual superiority for a second before I though what an ass I was for thinking these people beneath me. They were probably nice people but to me they just seemed so boring and banal that I found greater entertainment in the tops of their heads than any words that ever left their mouths. After feeling bad for a few moments, I returned to my book and finished my food.

The waitress came by again filling my water and dropping off my bill after asking if I wanted anything else. Again declining the anything else, I looked at the bill, which came to all of about seven dollars. I pulled out two peculiarly folded bills from my pocket and after unraveling them found them to be two 20’s. I was trapped in a similar dilemma as before, this time not about rent or selfishness but simple economics. I didn’t have change to leave an appropriate tip but if I paid the bill I would be left with 12 dollars and coins and another 20. I knew the bill was only 7 dollars but 2 dollars seemed like an unworthy tip. I knew it is well more than 15% but I hated leaving tips less than 5 dollars for some reason. So I paid the bill, although this time a different person cashed me out in the front and gave me my change. My waitress was in the back clearing away dishes or getting someone else’s order. After getting the change I made my way back to the table to leave the tip and thought to myself, “What else can I do, I have to leave the 10”. I folded the 10 in half and left it under the untouched, clean knife and made my way out the door. I was hoping to see the waitress before I left but she never showed. I walked out the door and imagined the look on her face when she got to my table and saw the money, similar to the way she looked at me the last time I was there.

The glass door closed behind me and as I walked away I thought about how pretty she was.