Open table

Last Friday, I was meeting two dear friends at our (mostly) monthly breakfast club, and for the first time in history, I beat them there. A chatty waitress met me just inside the door, and I explained that there’d be three of us and perhaps one of them was already there. She said oh yes, she’s in the “little girls’ room.” Why is that phrase still allowed in 2024? Anyway, I nodded, saw a mobile phone pseudo-paperweight atop a stack of assorted crap on the table that looked like it could belong to my friend Joanie. So, I sat down. 

About four minutes later, a dark-haired woman I did not know walked up to the table. She looked puzzled and quickly snapped up her belongings.

I was at her table.

“I am so sorry,” I said, trying to explain why a perfect stranger was seated in the booth where her personal pile of crap was in plain sight. Obviously. More than a tad embarrassed because I am a hopeless rule follower, I immediately got up to move to another location (read: restaurant), but she insisted I stay put.

“I’ll just sit over here,” she said smiling. “No biggie. You have a Merry Christmas!”

How nice was that?

At the table behind mine, Mr. Clean with AirPods engrossed in his laptop peered above his readers and unloaded this gem: “Man, this is like a Hallmark movie!”

You’ve probably heard the joke about those predictable movies on the Hallmark Channel, whose popularity rises especially at this time of year.

“What has 15 actors, three settings, two writers and one plot?” All Hallmark movies. (That one was for you, Chris, my favorite godmother.)

Hallmark is the American cable television network owned by, well, Hallmark Media, a subsidiary of, you guessed it, Hallmark Cards. So sappy, schmaltzy plots are in their DNA. Their family-oriented entertainment includes made-for-TV movies that follow formulaic plots that go something like this:

“Woman from big city visits small town for a seemingly temporary reason, such as work or to visit her estranged family. Woman encounters a challenge, such as a failing family business or a property owner who doesn’t want to sell. Woman also meets a (wo)man with whom she has a conflict, such as a childhood classmate or a competitor’s employee. Woman works to resolve her challenge but then discovers the (wo)man is not the bad person she thought they were. After about an hour, the couple realizes their mutual disdain is actually love, and the woman decides to stay in the small town. Their happiness is sealed with a kiss, but not before they find their dream house in a mixed, multi-cultural neighborhood and after they rescue an adorable stray dog named Daisy.”

If this were a real Hallmark movie, after a delicious breakfast of chicken and waffles, the two brunettes who met by chance at a Royal Oak diner would get to know each other better, maybe visit Home Depot, peruse a Duluth Trading Co. catalog, book a U-Haul and live happily ever after Up North in a quaint cottage on a lake surfing the web with their camo-covered iPhones.

Kidding. I’m more of a Menard’s girl. Only because they sell that soft and chewy “Australian” licorice, Wiley Wallaby. Pillowy, smooth, thick and flavorful. Unlike Twizzlers. Blech.

Back to my diner drama.

All of us perfect strangers had a good laugh, wished each other well, and then my actual friends arrived. After I related the entire cheesy open table story, Emily said, “You were early? You’re never early.”

Haha. Very funny. And she’s supposedly the nice one.

Admittedly, even though I share the blood of a father who considered being on time to be late, I’m notorious for doing just that. Sources confirm that I have been doing much better.

But that’s what dear friends are for, right? You can tease them without worrying about offending or ticking them off or hurting their feelings. Mostly. I mean, it was a cute story and she could have acknowledged it before focusing on my being early. Just saying.

Honestly, there’s a line you know not to cross, yet you’re keenly aware of the minutely measurable distance leading up to it.

Like heartfelt jokes about being early.

Or, about tinted blue hair, magic marker earrings and “Bless Your Heart” T-shirts.

As in, we’re so close that we could say, “Your hair is ugly, and your earrings are, too.”

We could, but we wouldn’t. (Joanie might, but not me.)

And we’d still break bread the following month. Because that’s how we roll.

Once again, my actual friends and I sat for more than three hours gabbing and laughing and nearly crying about anything and everything in our lives: loss of fur babies, families, Christmas blahs, post-election blues, Medicare.

By lunch time, we decided it was time to pay our bill and leave a generous gratuity. Hugs all around. Twice, in fact. Then back to our respective, retired little lives. 

Happy holidays to all of my actual friends, near and far. Active and retired.

There will always be a seat at my table for you. Even if your hair is tinted blue.

(AUDIO: If you have about two minutes for some nostalgia, give a listen to Alvin and the Chipmunks singing “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)” from 1958.)