The Diner - #3

AKA The View from the Last Booth

Picking up where we left off after #2 in this series…

Today’s entry is going to be a bit like one of those shows where all of the various, seemingly independent, plotlines come together by the end of the episode. If you’ve read the prior two editions; the reprint of The Gift I posted here earlier today; and have read my Twitter or IG feed lately, you’re well prepared.

Let’s get going.

I’ve been to the Diner a few times since posting Episode 2. As always, the regulars come and go eating their eggs and omelets and pancakes. Occasionally someone comes in and sits at the counter but mostly, the front room stays quiet save for an occasional group or two. Most customers sit in the dining room. That leaves me free to just sit up front and take it all in from my little corner.

Since the day after Halloween, Jen has had Christmas music on. Usually, I’d find that agonizingly tedious this early in the holiday season but it has a certain perfectness as the soundtrack for a place in which she is the emotional heart and soul.

She’s the kind of person who loves Christmas for the simple joy of it. Not the presents or commercialism. No, she’s the kind of person who just loves *the feeling* of the holidays. The spirit. The chance to just soak in the warmth of a time that is about friends and family and togetherness and tradition.

And I will say, my little exposure to that energy this past couple weeks has had me warming up to the Christmas spirit myself and much earlier than I usually do.

The last few years, it was hard for me to get into the holidays. I found a way to muster the spirit eventually but it was usually late in the season and sort of under duress as if “feeling Christmasy” was a mandatory task like any other and I was late in completing it.

So, anyway, back to the present where we have a rural country diner, some Christmas music on loop, Jen behind the counter, and me in a booth with some nascent Christmas spirit perking up.

Now, in parallel, I’ve been coming into a little unexpected money.

As you may have seen on my Twitter feed, I had a silly little t-shirt idea that poked fun at all the grammar-challenged knuckleheads who post angry, ranty replies which invariably butcher the correct your/you’re and there/their/they’re.

It’s a dumb little idea but it makes me laugh so I hastily created an online storefront, threw together some products, and posted about it on Twitter and Instagram.

Apparently it made other people laugh too because suddenly sales were rolling in and my piece was adding up.

$200… $400… $700… $1,200...

That was cool and all but TBH, it made me a little uncomfortable. While this may make sense to virtually no one, I hadn’t intended to make real money from selling stuff to y’all. That turns me into a merchant and it turns y’all into customers.

I like to think of our little circle as a community (with me being just a member of it like everyone else.) It is one thing for people to support my writing. To me, that’s community supporting community. It’s another thing to just make money off of selling stuff to y’all at a markup.

So, I decided I would give away the profits. It’s the holidays. I could make some folks’ seasons a bit brighter.

(See, I’m already Christmasy as fuck, aren’t I? I blame Jen for that.)

Now hold that thought for a minute while we zoom back in time to one of our other plotlines which is about to become relevant:

The Gift.

If you read the story in that post, you saw that a couple years ago, an anonymous stranger gave a friend of mine a Christmas gift for her son that meant the absolute world to them both. Playing a small part in facilitating it was one of the most touching experiences of my life.

What I didn’t share in my original telling of the story on Twitter was that when the anonymous benefactor’s driver arrived to hand off the gift for my friend, he was actually carrying two packages.

One was the PS5 for my friend.

The other was a gift-wrapped box with an envelope taped to it addressed to me.

In the envelope was $500.

In the box was a pen.

Not just any pen though. A beautiful Mont Blanc with a deep blue barrel. Unlike the classic Mont Blanc with its flat black lacquer, it seemed unique and distinctive. In my hand, it feels heavy and balanced and perfect.

At the time, I was still two years away from coming to terms with the fact that what I wanted, deep down inside, was to be a writer.

That pen felt like it was a gift for a writer.

I adored it for that. I still do.

However, I had done nothing to deserve it… and I had done even less to deserve the money.

So, I decided to pay it forward.

Inside the Mont Blanc box was a blank notecard and envelope. On the card, I wrote a note to a friend who was struggling; tucked half the money in the envelope; and sent it off to him.

Then I took the other half and sent it off to a teacher who I knew was endlessly spending her own money to make her classroom a home to the underprivileged kids she taught and cared about.

And then that little ritual became a bit of a holiday ritual.

Taking The Pen out of its little case. Writing a note to accompany some small act of paying-it-forward. Sending it off to the recipient.

Now, fast-forward back to the present and there I was this week with some unexpected money and the rumblings of a much earlier-than-usual Christmas spirit.

So, I bought a card and then went home and pulled out The Pen and wrote a note to Jen from The Diner.

Told her I had heard about what she did for kids at her Game Nights. See: Diner #2 - stopping the prize wheel...

On the surface, it sounds like just a simple kindness - an adult being nice to children - but in hearing her telling, it read to me as an act by someone who understood from personal experience that some of those kids might not have had good days at school or at home before coming up to spin the wheel.

In the card, I wrote that sometimes somebody should stop the wheel so Jen could be the one to win. Tucked $400 into the envelope; sealed it up; and called my friend who drives car service and makes deliveries for a living (the same one I mentioned earlier had been struggling a couple years ago). Told him I wanted to hire him to drop something off for me.

This morning, I left the package on my doorstep and told my friend where he could find it and where he needed to take it. Left some money for him as well and told him not to let on that he knew me if he saw me there.

Then I drove out to The Diner and took my usual seat and opened my laptop, pretending to work. A little while later, the doors jangled open, and my friend came walking in with the delivery.

“I’m looking for a Jen. Are you Jen?”

“That’s me.” she said from behind the counter.

“I have a delivery for you.” he said.

She was like “Me? I never get anything.”

He handed her the padded envelope with the card inside, said “Happy Thanksgiving.” and then turned and left while I kept my head down in my laptop pretending not to notice any of this.

A few minutes later, I heard Jen tearing open the delivery envelope and then the card.

Glanced up a couple times only briefly. Each time, Jen was just holding the card reading it and re-reading it.

I finished my eggs and coffee, closed my laptop, and paid my bill.

In the spirit of the kind stranger who gave me The Pen a couple years ago, I am perfectly happy to have Jen never know the card was from me.

I’m telling y’all all of this because it’s part of the story of The Diner.

Separately, I still have some money left to give out from my little t-shirt racket.

Between now and Christmas, I will be pulling out a black case with a Mont Blanc logo in the corner a few more times. Inside is a pen a stranger gave me as part of a touching, unexpected gift for which they wanted no credit. I’ll use it to write a few more notes and then stuff bills into envelopes and see that they get delivered.

And the only person who will know who they’re from will be me.

And that is so incredibly satisfying.