I recently read a story where a man went to a diner for a meal of burger and fries. Before he left, he gave his server a tip of $10,000. Yep, ten grand. He overheard how this person's son was diagnosed with cancer. He had recently won the lottery and wanted to spread the wealth where and when he could.
This is the perfect example of how anything can happen in a diner. You won't hear stories like this happening in McDonald's. Not in my opinion. In my experience, the workers in fast food are kept too separate from the customers to ever be in receipt of such kindness.
But just as such joy can happen in a diner, there may also occur frustration.
Case in point.
This happened while I was working at Pee Wee's Diner in '87 or '88. A couple of jocks walked in one afternoon. They were dressed like they'd just finished playing basketball, I think. Or maybe tennis. They wanted to eat hot dogs. But not just any hot dogs. They asked the cook if she could make bacon cheese hot dogs.
Well, we didn't have anything like that on the menu. Apparently, some other place in the area did. So the cook shrugged and tried to make what they wanted. Cooked up the hot dogs, sliced 'em open, put cheese inside, and wrapped 'em in bacon. The guys ate four of the things between 'em.
They also drank two 32 ounce lemonades apiece. All this while they sat around for over an hour talking about sports.
When they were done, they thanked us for the food and paid their bill. I distinctly remember the total being $9.91. They paid with a ten and left the tip on the counter.
A grand total of nine cents.
I'll stop here because I still can't bring myself to publicly say what I think of those two guys.
Good writing . . . and good dinering.
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