At the intersection of Highway 41 North and Silver Spur Street, I waited for a gaggle of tumbleweed to roll on by. No such luck. Damn. Across from us on the corner pleasantly sat the Happy Burger Diner: Home of the Largest Menu in the County. Large, I learned, is a relative term. After seeing the menu myself, I was confident I owned more Hardy Boys Mysteries (-the Nancy Drew editions) as a third grader than they owned items on their menu. And that’s not saying much, really. Outside was lined with pickup trucks from the years when the running man was actually a revolutionary dance and one sole state trooper whose main purpose I’m sure was just to let his presence be known. This was downtown.
The lone street light had just began to cast its light when the waitress, who looked to likeness of Kathy Najimy, but with the voice of secretary from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, bounced her way on over to pour my mother a cup of coffee. I wouldn’t have put it past her to tell us her name was something along the lines of a Marge or a Linda and for her to use the phrase “gosh by golly that one’s a doosey” rather often. The inside looked as though it had been designed to represent a classic diner from the fifties. Our mistake. Marge or Linda or Sally even informed us it was from fifties.
It’s just like California to treat me better than I deserved to be treated, as if I was the king of all the world. I will be back. I don’t know how long that will take or for how long it will be, but I will return on my two feet. The wildlife never disappointed and kept me in constant wonderment as I learned I could respect it even more with each day. I know ya’ll wondering, yes I did see a bear. And my buddy from Harkness, which I named Ziggy, 2nd cousin twice remove’s, neighbor’s, best friend’s, sister’s, illegitimate child says, “Holy Schnikes Batman!” Wait, that can’t be right. It sounds too much like something an overweight superhero’s sidekicks would say. In my defense, it was a rough translation over from squeak squeak squeaken. But maybe my most memorable moments were the ones with actual human interactions. Then again, maybe it’s too soon to tell.
The busser kindly cleared our dishes of coffee and asked where we were staying tonight without us mentioning we were the new kids. I hoped it was because she just happened to know everyone in this one horse town. It was wishful thinking. “We must look like tourists then,” I sputtered through my laugh. “No not at all,” she said bluntly. “You just look too happy to be from this place.”
***
If you ever want to feel alone in a large crowd with everyone putting on the same zombie, mundane stare, go to an airport. If one’s not available, I’m sure your local Wal-Mart will do. I longed for ways to amuse myself in my four hour and fourteen minute delay from Denver to O’Hair. I dabbled at lamenting on the simple pleasures I had encountered earlier. All I had mustered up was the stewardess had given me an extra bag of pretzels to save for later. I didn’t ask for it. It just happened. I used my last dollar to purchase a pack of gum from the John Muir Express Café and Convenient Store, a name I’d never think I’d hear. How does one find herself working at a John Muir Express Café and Convenient Store? Surely when one is growing up and is asked what she wants to do as an adult, the reply couldn’t possibly be, “to never sacrifice friendliness for prompt service when I am a team member of my local airport’s corporate quickie mart for going the minimum wage.” But the middle aged employee had the most natural smile planted across her face even when no one was looking at her. How was she so happy? How was she able to see so many simple pleasures in life to keep her going day to day? Whom did she love? I may had lost interest in my book by now but I had gained interest in a stranger’s world and a newfound conclusion that NorthWest Airlines must have a brilliant abbreviation department in its company. It’s straight outta genius.
Maybe it’s because we are looking for a sense of comfort through identity, maybe it’s because we long to be viewed as approachable and outgoing, or maybe it’s because we subconsciously fear commitment. Whatever it is, I have no idea why people feel the need to talk to strangers when it’s not necessary. It never ends well. You know the deal. You’re sitting on a plane, or in my case a broken down, torn up seat in a row of chairs outside gate 24C awaiting the arrival of those four little words “Now boarding Section 2” and for some reason you feel the need to comment or remark to the person sitting beside you. They usually reply without whit but with enough astuteness to get the small talk rolling. Then before you know it, you’re done. There’s nothing else you can add to the conversation that wouldn’t be too unrelateable, get too political, give away too much of your personal information in case they happen to be regular inspirations for the writers of S.V.U., or just completely freak them out. So now all you’re left with is either a conversation that is now beginning to feel longer than the wait for Axel Rose’s new album or loud silence shouting at you for being so stupid to strike this up in the first place. You can feel that same queasy pit in your stomach erupt the way it does those times you meet an old acquaintance who remembers your name but you don’t remember theirs. Then by the time they’ve discussed their personal loss of a close relative, their conversion to scientology, and covered all the other significant life changing events, it’s far too late to ask them what their name is without sounding completely crude and jagged.
Why then I am the culprit of speaking to more businessmen, directors, stepfathers of heart transplant patients, fly-fishing lovers, professional scuba divers of the Barrier Reef, Columbian tourists, and Tennessee mayors who just wants to get their kids back from Idaho after their wives packed up to go live with their mothers than anyone else I know? That, along with why are pickles served with sandwiches (a pickle is so random; chips or an apple, yes I can see, but a sliver of a cucumber doused in sodium?), are the eighth and ninth wonders of the world. No question about it.
Around the turn of the fourth hour of delay I had already learned my lesson when I found myself seated next to a girl about my age of nineteen. I’d describe her as someone who tries so hard to be an individual that they end up being classified into a group which society has labeled as “individuals” but that would be taking the easy way out and failing to pay her justice. Her big brown eyes glared up at me as though she had defeated her own purpose. She was her own worst enemy. I remained in my own world, as the rest of the people who surrounded me were, until I couldn’t help but overhear her conversation. She made it easy to; it wasn’t like I was trying anymore. When she wasn’t crying, I gathered from her muffled voice coming her head on knees that she hadn’t eaten since 10am yesterday and only had one dollar. She had run away from the place she called home. With no money myself, I was only able to give her my bag of pretzels. She didn’t ask for it, it just happened.
***
The busser at the Happy Burger Diner: Home of the Largest Menu in the County just wanted to leave home and the stranger fatefully seated beside me just wanted to get home. And me? I just wanted to be home. To me, home isn’t a place of staying; it’s a place of being. To me, home is stopping whatever I’m doing no matter the caliber of importance to read the new magazine that has arrived in the mail. Home is riding with the windows down in my truck on humid summer evening to any of The Boss’s songs. Home is explaining to people for the umpteenth time why I am a vegetarian. And I know that love of any shape, size, or style is when you feel at home. Okay, so maybe I stole that last idea from The Cure, but to me, they’re home.
Things to consider:
-There are a dozen or so Old 97's songs hidden through out.
-Chinese Democracy still has not been released since the original posting.
