late diner

Published:

We're in a diner at an obscene hour. Its very plain, boxy, brown-yellow wooden stained booths, dark blue fake suede cushions, white walls and dark greyblue floors. Cheap looking. Seated across two booths and chatting with each other. The menus are beat up brochures of paper rolled up and stuck into a jar on the table. The waiter, a somewhat stocky old man with a square face, comes over to take our order. I'm not sure yet so I ask if he can wait, he goes to my friend and has trouble with him while I fiddle with the menu, and eventually comes back around to me. I'm looking at the "late LATE" section of the menu, and I ask my way through most of it (all out of stock, or way too expensive for what they are) before he tells me they pretty much just have wings, everything else has been burned through. I say fine, order 10 and a lite beer, whichever. My friend complains about the waiter, who apparently made a snide remark about him saying "four words?" My friend is sure he only said two.