It Wasn't So "Affle"...

There's just something about Waffle House. The food's rarely good, the service is terrible and bowl of grits houses more butter than a Land O' Lakes factory. But we all still go there. Maybe it's because we feel sorry for the lonely employees who wait tiredly at 3 o'clock in the morning for some poor soul to come in and talk to them. Or maybe it's because a waffle only costs $1.25 and this is just barely under my 4th meal budget. Whatever the case may be, this is the restaurant Diane chose for us to eat at after the Fourth of July event last Wednesday. Our friends Eric and Logan drove down from the metropolis of Hahira, Georgia to watch the fireworks with us and then it was off to the Waffle House on Capital Circle.

Waffle House was surprisingly crowded at 11:00 that evening. 2 employees, a cook and a waiter, ran around like chickens with their heads cut off, the latter looking particularly despondent. We filled up about 3 tables and were waiting patiently for someone to come to our table when the waiter stood up declared, "This is [insert expletive here]," and walked out, pad in hand. The cook seemed to turn white and all of us looked at him, wondering what we were supposed to do. He started to pace the floor and looked as though he was about to faint at any moment. He tried calling his manager, but she was an hour away. He didn't even know how to use the register. Or take orders. He was just the cook. All of us who'd already eaten didn't have tickets, so we didn't know how much we owed. It was at this point that Christina Klawinski stood up and put her hand on the cook's shoulder and said, "I'll run the register." Christina went behind the counter and started tinkering with the register, trying to figure it out. The cook, Randall was his name, looked so relieved that Diane got up and started taking drink orders. Another girl from a different table (who looked a lot like Joy Fulford, so we took to calling her that) asked Randall for a pad of paper and began to take orders for everybody. Armed with a menu in one hand and a calculator in another, a skinny muscular guy in a wife-beater began to walk to each table making tickets for everyone. Kenley calculated tax, Logan put on an apron and hat and began to wash dishes, another guy named Doug began scooping out grits and Joy's daughter began cleaning tables. Randall had never had such help, nor such a clean store.

After about half an hour, the new "employees" of the Capital Circle Waffle House were already shouting orders to each other. Joy chided Doug for his ignorance of the Waffle House menu. "Come on, Doug, you know that the All Star breakfast comes with a waffle!" Kenley was demanding refills and all of us were feeling pretty comfortable in there. When the manager walked in unexpectedly all of us stopped dead. We'd violated so many health codes and labor laws. But she only smiled and went on and on about how blessed she was with such sweet customers. So it was with a mix of disappointment and relief that we handed over the reigns to her. Randall got the biggest tip that night he'll probably ever see and he had a pretty darn good Fourth of July that day. I think that all of us have jobs waiting for us at Waffle House if we ever need them. (I also think that we'll all respectfully decline the offer.)