Last night, Joe and I went to dinner at our friend’s home. We took separate cars because we both drove directly from our respective worksites. So one of us, (me) got there before the other one of us (him) and won the spot of ‘Dessert Buyer’ which wasn’t a big thing and I didn’t mind at all. I would just run into the grocery store and pick up something nice. No biggie.
Apparently, no one in their area eats food from grocery stores. Because there just aren’t any. Which makes me feel so sorry for them, those sad, sad, people with no food. But being at the top of my game, I quickly thought up a new plan. I’d just find a bakery or dessert shop and get something there.
Was I HIGH? If they don’t eat grocery store food, why did I think they’d have a bakery? They have Staples and 3 hair places and other assorted stores that have no food. There was a Target, which in retrospect probably would have had a box of cookies. I totally could have picked up a bag of little Honey Graham bear cookies for dessert, each sealed in their own portion-sized bag. That would have been the smart choice. But I digress….
The only option was a Denny’s. Have you heard about how much I love Denny’s? No? That’s because I don’t. But I knew they had pies. Whole ones. And I could buy one. So, against my better judgment and past experience, I went in.
Krystal: 15 or so and zitty, was on an important phone call when I walked in. Her name badge was smudged but her hair was clean. Her off-brown-orange-tan shade of foundation mask was just thick enough to cover her jaw line but not her acne. She held the phone pinched between her shoulder and ear while twirling a pencil in one hand and fixing her padded bra with the other. She saw me walk in and she smiled a very large, toothy smile and raised one finger to let me know to wait-one-minute-and-she’d-be-right-with-me and continued her phone conversation. With Dan.
“Dan, I’m worrrrking!” Her eyes get large and ever so exasperated.
“Seriously. I’m worrrrrrking. I can’t talk right now.” She rolls her eyes to show me that she’s just as irritated at Dan as I am.
“Oh. My. Hell. Seriously. I’m SO working right now. You should just come down here. Seriously.” Krystal raises her shoulders in a shrug, looks at me and raises her one finger again. ItÂ’s a good thing her finger is a few feet away from me or it might accidentally get bent backwards.
“Daaaaan. I’m not going to keep talking to you right now. I’m SO working.” She covers the mouthpiece, so Dan can’t hear her WORKING and whispers to me, ‘I’ll just be a sec.’ and shows me her great gappy teeth again.
“OK. Seriously, you’re a pig. And I’m so not going to. And now I’m telling you, I’m working. So, are you coming in later? Because that would be SO cool. I TOTALLY hate this sucky job and all these PEOPLE (through clenched teeth) so come in here you ass.”
My instinct is to thump her and remind her that yes, I’m still standing 2 feet from her and that I am one of those PEOPLE (I’ll show you clenched teeth) and that she better get her raggy ass off the phone. I HATE Denny’s.
Krystal hangs up the phone. She shrugs her shoulders one more time just for good measure while she shakes her head….that darned, silly Dan.
“Hiiiiii. You’re eating all alone? Just you?”
“No. I’m just here to buy a pie.”
“A pie?” *blink* *blink*
“Uh, yes. A pie.”
“You just want to eat pie? Do you want to sit at the bar?”
“No. I’m just going to buy a pie and take it with me.”
“Oh. Ok.” Yelling to the guy at the grill, “Hey! Do we sell the pies? Like, a whole pie?” Then to me, “Ok. What kind?”
“What kind do you have?”
“Uuuuuummmm. Waaaaait just a sec.” She looks in the drawer under the cash register. Nope. No pies in there. She goes to the little shelf-fridge with the pieces all set out on plates and showing upside-down double amounts thanks to the mirror along the top. “We don’t have a whole pie. Do you want to take, like, 10 pieces of these?”
The guy comes out from behind the grill and tells her that there are whole pies in the back. She totally “Oooooooohhhh”s and then shrugs her shoulders to me again.
I could continue. But I won’t. It took me about 15 more minutes to actually get the pie in a bag (because there are TWO sizes of bags and only one fits around the box and that is so confusing) and out the door. But my strong belief is that Dan did come in later and that Krystal and Dan ran away to, like, somewhere where there are no PEOPLE because she hates them and a place where she doesn’t have to figure out how to be customer-servicey or look for pies mysteriously kept in refrigerators and not in drawers. One can hope.