After conducting some business in the City or undergoing a medical procedure there, my wife and I like to stop for lunch at a well known and by now an ancient hamburger restaurant. Mainly, I like the idea of eating in an establishment that has a history of being around for a long time. Apparently many people do; otherwise, it would not have been there since the days waitresses wore quaint uniforms with headgear that sort of reminded one of nurses. Their appearance had a hygienic look and that made eating there seem safe. We look forward to the large and tasty French fries the milk shakes (actually, I prefer the chocolate malted) and the large onions on the hamburgers. The meat appears to be freshly ground, but the burgers themselves are a little thin, so we have to order a "double" in order to have the sense something of consequence has been consumed.
Two days ago we had the opportunity to visit this restaurant once again. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when we pulled into the parking lot. A full lot at lunch time is not unusual and the line of cars with drivers waiting to shout their orders into the squawk box (I think this is a relatively new innovation) did not seem out of the ordinary either. However, when we entered the din, the noise, of a hundred or more 12 and 13 year old middle school students all talking at once did shock us. Nevertheless, intent on having lunch at our favorite hamburger place kept us there. We believed that the young people would soon leave and go to wherever their field trip ended. We were mistaken. The group we encountered on entering did leave, but before they departed another hundred or so, and then another hundred or so followed. Hearing ten or 20 excited juvenile voices talking at the same time can be charming (I love young people--I am not a crumudgon), but hundreds and hundreds of them talking at once is a trial.
Ordinarily, we can order and be served in about ten minutes. This time we sat for 30 minutes waiting for two doubles, an order of French fries, a vanilla milk shake, a chocolate malted, and two cups of coffee. I should clarify that a little, the coffee arrived promptly. Looking about I noticed the size of the crowd, the number of lunch time diners, had no impact on the delay. "Skyscrapers" and lots of them caused the delay.
A "Skyscraper" I saw amounted to a giant glass of something pink and frothy. Since the menu had not been returned to our table or never been there, I am unable to tell you what a "Skyscraper" contained. I assume, by its appearance, that ice cream, carbonated water, flavored and colored syrup, and whipped cream made up the ingredients; oh yes, a maraschino cherry topped it off. In all the times we have eaten there a single "skyscraper" has never been served in our sight. But the tasty looking and absolutely decadent dessert is not the reason our lunch hour lengthened. No, the fact that one of these things found its way off the menu and on to a table had nothing to do at all with making us sit for over 30 minutes; the waitresses (to use a quaint term for a quaint restaurant) had to sing an inane and primitive sounding song while beating on percussion instruments of various kinds. I had not expected that such a thing happened at this fine old establishment.
Limited conversation, no impossible conversation, highlighted the lunch of us. Although my wife and I have been married for over 50 years we still like to talk to one another. Between the din of hundreds of 13 year old voices and waitresses singing about "skyscrapers" and beating primitive percussion instruments conversation became impossible. But, we did not want to leave. We saw some potential customers back away when they entered the establishment, but we stayed and stayed.
My supposition is that this place, filled with young life celebrating the end of the school year and waitresses enjoying singing a strange song filled with weird sounds changed the mood of the day for us and woke us up from the lethargy of sitting around in a medical office looking at all the other Medicare recipients who were having a lousy day. They were not in the restaurant so all I can do is guess is that their day never got better.
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