Our Breakfast Surprise

THE MAN'S STORY:

I'm thinking about an old buddy - a guy I used to work with in two different companies  - and feeling kind of bad that I haven't kept in touch. This friend lives in South Carolina and hasn't visited Northeast Ohio in years.

I hit the gym early and decide to grab breakfast in Boston Heights to catch up on some paperwork before I start my work day. I sit down at a corner booth and begin writing. The table directly in front of me is vacant.

Soon someone is seated. I look up and there is a couple talking to their waitress. The man looks kind of like the very guy I was just thinking of and I begin to entertain the idea of covertly snapping a pic on my cell and sending it to my friend.


THE COUPLE'S STORY:

We once lived in Hudson, OH, and arrived yesterday to attend the wedding of our friend and former next-door neighbor.  Our schedule is packed.  We are trying to cram seeing as many people as possible into a few day's time. The woman we'd planned on visiting this morning ended up taking a quick trip to California so this is the only block of free time we have in this entire trip. We decide to go to Boston Heights and eat a leisurely breakfast at this fun place we used to enjoy on Saturday mornings.  

I was poking around, taking my old sweet time getting ready when my husband urged me to hurry up.  I thought to myself, "Why? We have all morning," but I finished quickly and we were on our way.

A few minutes later, we enter the restaurant.  Little has changed in the years since we last dined there.  We normally choose a booth and there are plenty available today but for some reason when the hostess asks where we want to sit, we say we don't care so she puts us at the table directly in front of this handsome guy who is looking down, quietly writing.

The waitress greets us. 


OUR HOLLYWOOD ENDING:

The man at the table hears the couple speak to the waitress.  He gets up, walks over and says, “May I join you?”


THE WRAP UP:

That is how we ended up having breakfast with an old friend that we hadn't planned on seeing, during a time we didn't know we'd be available, in a city where we normally wouldn't even have been.  Coincidence?  I prefer to think otherwise.

Jerry and Dave enjoying breakfast

www.StillSwimmingUpstream.com

The Missing Checkbook

I was getting frantic.  I hadn't seen the checkbook for over a week and was beginning to think that it was lost and not just misplaced.  I spent the last two days tearing up the house searching.  As a result, my laundry room has never looked better.  Good news!  The checkbook was not under the washing machine.

It wasn't in the spare bedroom closet either.  Or in the freezer.  Not in the dresser drawer or under the bathroom sink.  Nix on the bookshelves (although I emptied them twice just to be sure.)  Not in the boxes of Christmas ornaments.  Jerry helped me search for several hours the other night.  I figure I have about twenty-five man hours invested in this project all together.  Still no checkbook.

The last time I could remember seeing it we were in Charleston.  I began wondering, would we drive back to Charleston just to get our checkbook?  How far would you backtrack to pick up a lost item?

                                                 *  *  *

When we were traveling back from Orlando a couple of weeks ago, we hit a storm system that was spawning tornadoes.  We'd planned to drive straight through, but considered the weather and stopped just at the edge of Savannah.  There was a cluster of chain motels there and we just picked one and slept there.  Nothing special, just an emergency place to stay.

In the morning we got up early and left.  We had breakfast in Savannah and it was during this meal that Jerry asked, "Did you grab the pillows?" I hadn't and so then we had a little dilemma.  Do we go back and get them or not? 

I really like my pillow.  It's goose down and broken in.  I feel about it like a four-year-old feels about her blankie.  I am attached to it, but I don't necessarily want people to know.  I hated to leave it behind, but Jerry's determination to get from "Point A" to "Point B" as rapidly as possible is legendary.  I harbored little hope that he would drive ten minutes in the wrong direction to retrieve it. 

Calling the motel was a good idea, but neither of us could remember what the name of it was and we hadn't gotten a receipt. I reasoned that it was still early and maybe the maids hadn't even cleaned our room yet but Jer didn't want to bother driving that far if they'd already thrown our pillows away. 

Jerry was calling random motel chains, asking them "Are you the motel by the Cracker Barrel?" when I realized I had stuffed my pillow into my suitcase.  The urgency of the trip back magically dissolved for me now that I knew my own pillow wasn't at risk.  Funny how that works, right?  I hadn't mentioned my news yet to Jer, but he sensed that something was different in my attitude. "Whatever you want to do, honey."  I said sweetly.

When I finally told him only his pillow was left in the room, he surprised me by deciding to go back anyway.  Apparently he likes his pillow as much as I like mine.  It was worth the extra twenty minutes' drive just to know that we would have our own pillows to sleep on when we got home.

A week or so later I was trying to make my friend who works at a B&B laugh by telling her the pillow story.  She did smile but then she told me an even funnier  one.  A snarky couple stayed with them for a couple of nights and when they left, the maid found a pair of men's underwear and a pair of socks in the bureau drawer.  "What should I do with these?" she asked.  It had been about forty-five minutes since these guests had departed so my friend said, "Throw them in the dumpster."

Wouldn't you know about fifteen minutes later the man called and said he was coming back for them?  The women were both flabbergasted!  How much can a pair of underwear and socks cost?  The gas they were going to spend to drive back to the inn probably would have covered the price tags of replacements and then some. 

The women quickly did a dumpster dive and recovered the articles, slightly worse for the wear.  Breakfast scraps had been thrown in on top of the underwear, so they now had Hollandaise sauce decorating the front panel.  The innkeeper scrubbed them the best she could, stuck them in a plastic bag and just handed the whole mess to the man when he arrived.  "Don't even ask," she told him.  

He'd added a hundred and twenty minutes to his drive in order to retrieve his pair socks and a wet pair of underpants.  It's a crazy world.

                                                   *  *  *

Sam "driving" the van.

So, would we drive four hours one-way to retrieve our checkbook?   We won't need to find out this time because I found it outside in the recycling bin.  Like I said, it's a crazy world.

Before the Rooster Crows

Every working day of my married life, my husband Jerry has gotten up well before the rooster crows, taken a quick shower, downed an iced tea and headed off to work.  (I believe he kisses me goodbye before he leaves the house, but I wouldn't swear to it.)  He arrives at his destination several hours before work officially begins.  A creature of habit, he likes his morning routine.  He says his schedule offers many advantages:  he beats the traffic; he has time alone at work to answer emails, tie up yesterday's loose ends and plan today's agenda.  

I have a morning routine that I like too, it's just happens later than Jerry's does.  A lot later.  I awaken when I'm done sleeping, then I get up and go for a walk, usually with my friend Mary Ann.  I then come home and start my day, sometimes eating breakfast at the same time my husband is having lunch.   While he feels most alert and energized in the early morning, my most creative time is hours after that and so we have arranged our lives accordingly. 

This year, I've had the dubious pleasure of leaving the house prior to my          husband's departure twice already and it's only February.  This has shattered several items on my long list of 'nevers.' (I never do this...I never do that...I never brush my teeth with cortisone cream - that one was an accident.  All tubes feel the same when you're fumbling around in the dark.)

The first event was a health fair where I ran smack dab into another night owl out of her element.  She was dressed in a nurse's uniform trying to blend in but I recognized her as one of my own.  "How?"  I knew because I complimented her on her glasses which turned out to be new.  As she was telling me about where she got them, she looked right at my bespectacled face and sweetly said, "Do you wear glasses?"  BINGO! That was a classic night owl blunder.  (Thank GOD it was after she'd drawn my blood!)  We both burst out laughing, which, when I think about it, might have actually frightened the others in the room who were waiting for their turn at the vampire's table.    

The next occasion I had to sally forth into the pre-dawn was of my own choosing.  I decided to join Toastmasters.  It was a New Year's resolution but it took the entire month of January before I was actually able to get up in time to make the 7:00 a.m. meeting.

Since I didn't know exactly where the Toastmasters met, I felt the need to leave the house forty-five minutes early to allow for traffic and the inevitable "getting lost three times" that always accompanies me whenever I drive anywhere.  I set my alarm for 5:30 but woke a half an hour early.  Because I was so excited, I had had trouble falling asleep the night before, so I was working with about three and a half hours' sleep.  I was beginning to understand why people find drinking  coffee so charming.

It was lucky that I had allowed extra time because when I got outside, my car was covered in a layer of frost.  Normally it would have been burned off by the sun but the sun wasn't up yet.  Instead, there was a big, beautiful full moon and the bright lights of cars and city. 

If this is sunrise, Jerry took the picture

I'm a big fan of sunsets and thought that one of the perks of getting up at an ungodly hour was that I'd have an opportunity to see the sunrise but it was even too early for that.  I arrived at my destination in the dark.

During Toastmasters time, the sun rose without me but I still couldn't take advantage of Charlotte shopping because it was too early for the stores to be open.  (Who knew?)  Prime-time rush hour was now occurring but good fortune smiled upon me because my drive was in the opposite direction of the wolf pack. Then, in the distance, I witnessed something I haven't seen in years: yellow buses picking little kids up for school. 

Even children were now up and ready for their day to begin.  Not me though.  All I could think of was, "If I hurry home, I can take a nap before breakfast."