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I loudly and obnoxiously fake an orgasm (for a really really long time) and everyone in the restaurant says "I'll have what she's having" to the waitress, who also wants what I'm having.
I look sad and weary, and seem to pretty much ignore everything you say, and then grab the bill before you can get it, paying with my credit card. You never realize you're a ghost.
NYC diners won't make a proper tuna melt--even when I describe what I want: made like a grilled cheese sandwich with the tuna just staring to brown and the bread toasted. NOT a lump of cold tuna with the cheese nuked over it on plain bread. And scrambled eggs means both in the bowl and the pan; NOT a half-cooked, folded over omelet.
Jersey has the best diners in my experience. I had the perfect tuna melt there. I requested Muenster cheese and the guy was all "Uh, that's the cheese that always goes on a tuna melt." I had to explain to him that I wasn't from the land of perfect diners before he understood that I wasn't typically dense.
... for a whole minute, I don't react. I stare fixated at the mingling steam and smoke from my black coffee and my cigarette. Then, after breaking up the party with a sip, I say, "Given enough opportunity and time, one can find mystery in anything."
Securing the cigarette between my lips, I reach into my coat pocket and bring out the object in question. After a look that wonders if you're truly ready, I place the small black box in the center of our table. Bigger than a matchbox. Smaller than a cigar box. Before removing my hand, I give it a final turn, ensuring that the latch is looking at you, not at me. Not anymore.
"There it is. What you do with it now is entirely your decision. And your fortune."
I chuckle silently, wistfully.
"Or your fault."
I light a new cigarette with my previous cigarette, waiting.
*opens the box and one of those fake snake things jumps out while sirens go off and Ed McMahon jumps out of the shitter to tell me I've won the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, except I've died from fright and too much boisenberry*
I pontificate on the differences between traditional diners and Greek diners, and rejoice in the existence of things like Silver Dollar Pancakes and the Happy Waitress and tall pies.
I am waiting at the counter for the man to pour the coffee and he fills it only halfway and before I even argue he is looking out the window at somebody coming in ...
I sit across from you talking away, totally unaware that I am building a tower out of those little creamer cups. Still talking, I get up and fetch the creamers from the next table, adding them to my tower. Over the course of the next hour, I clear every other table of their cream supply, building my tower ever-higher until it rises like the Great Pyramid between us on the table. Surprised, I say, "Where the hell did this come from?!?" and sweep it to the floor, then blithely continue our conversation like nothing happened.
I order pie and coffee, and think how nice it is to be sitting in a diner populated by such erudite types as gather here, and am grateful that there is no blaring TV.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
