1. Double Takes
When he walked up the to table, the waiter looked to Trudy. She was still looking at the menu, so he turned to me. And when he saw me, he did a little bit of a double take and then smiled and nodded in the slight way he always has.
He was a busboy when I started eating at El Patio more than 25 years ago. They have a pecking order in that place, and back then he was on the ground floor. But in the long time that has passed, the senior waiters from back then have retired, and now he is one of them. We don’t know each other by name, but we know each other by sight. And so when he smiled and nodded, he also said “Hello” in a way that said “It’s good to see you again.”
I said hello in return.
And then he looked at Ben and did another double take and then a triple take as his eyes widened and his mouth opened and he said, “Oh my.”
Ben smiled.
Clearly he recognized Ben, who has been eating there literally all his life. “Oh my,” he said, “hello!”
He turned back to me with a wide eyed look on his face as if to say… And he didn’t need to say it.
“We’re getting old, man,” I said.
He nodded and smiled. Â “Yes we are.”
2. Saltines
When I paid the bill at the cash register, I leaned forward and asked David a question I’ve wanted to ask for a while.
“Tell me, why did you switch to chips from saltines?” (A Tex-Mex restaurant with saltines instead of chips always struck us as odd, although we did like them with the butter that David’s dad had out on the tables.)
He smiled and handed me my change. “The cost. They raised the cost of a box of them on me, so I switched to chips.”
“To be honest, I kind of like the chips better,” I said.
“Thanks,” he said. “It worked out better all around.”
“It’s been a while,” I said. “How long has it been since you switched, a few years?”
“Fourteen years.”
Sheesh.