She Can't Catch Up With The Working Crowd, The Weekend Mood And She's Feeling Proud, Live In Dreams Sunday Girl

--"Sunday Girl", Blondie

Sometimes I wonder which I remember more or which brings more into focus my memories, the events that actually happened to me or the people I met along the way. It's very easy for me to get lost in the what of a story and to forget that the who of the story can be just as memorable. A prime example of this is my trip to D.C. way back in '86.

Back in Sixth Grade I took a trip with a collection of students from my class to Washington D.C. It was an annual trip so the whole time I went to school it was something the younger kids looked forward to. You'd always hear about how great the trip was from the other grades ahead of you and you always dreamed about all the sights you were going to see. And I have to say mine didn't disappoint. I mean--I have so many different anecdotes of all the different things that happened on that one trip. From the Holy Grail of Milkshakes near Thomas Jefferson's house to the naked flashing Superman imitations with half the class in one hotel room--it is probably the one trip I look back on with complete fondness.

One thing I remember on the trip was how awesome it was that we had 2 out of the 3 meals paid for us by the school. Mostly it was of the variety of eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant and being able to order whatever we wanted and then the same thing later that night at a restaurant out somewhere. However, there were some pretty damn fantastic exceptions to the rule when it came to some breakfasts. The first one was that two days the the class had their breakfast at McDonald's. They explained to us that because it wasn't a full sit-down place we could order however much we wanted to and it would be paid for, but if we wanted seconds it would come out of our own pockets. That first time I wasn't myself and didn't think of the best way to exploit the rules so I ordered what I usually ordered, a big breakfast with an extra hash brown.

Mistake.

I realized my faux pas when I saw everyone else with three or four hash browns on their tables. Now I'm a man who loves his hash browns and I should have jumped all over the school's generous offer. That whole breakfast I pretty much complained the entire time that I should have gotten more than two.

That's why the second time we had breakfast at McDonald's and they proffered us the same lucrative deal, I took them at their word. When the counter person asked me that time what I wanted, I made sure I got clarification on the exact conditions my breakfast would be paid for from one of our parental chaperones. Again, I was told I could order as much as I wanted on the house, but seconds would be paid for with my own money. With a big smile on my face I turned back to the guy or girl on register and placed my order. "I'd like a Big Breakfast with an orange juice and thirty hash browns, please."

I felt the person taking my order's befuddlement before I saw it.

"Did you say thirty, sir?"

"Yes, I want thirty extra hash browns."

And that's how I pretty much had snacks for the rest of that day and most of the next. I squirreled away the remaining hash browns in my backpack and took one out whenever I got hungry (or bored). You would think I would have gotten tired after, oh say, the fifteenth straight hash brown, but I don't think I could ever get tired of that. I have a big propensity for eating a lot of the foods I like and almost never eating a food I dislike.

Sufficed to say, when the news broke of my apparent gall at which I took the school's generosity to the extreme, I became sort of a folk hero for the duration of the class trip. If I wasn't being congratulated for having the balls to take advantage of the situation, I was being admonished for the selfsame act. What did I care? I had my hash browns to keep me company.

It's this trait that came in handy when we were taken to a breakfast buffet place on the second to last day of our trip. Again, the school, rather than pay for the steep buffet prices, had worked out with management to provide us kids with the same deal. We could load up on our first trip, but we couldn't go back for seconds. Still remembering my recent victory, I loaded up my tray for bear. Following is the exact list of my breakfast my morning, a breakfast so massive it took six plates in total:

Giant Belgian Waffles (2)
French Toast (4)
Regular Toast (2)

Sausage Links (8)
Ham Steak (2)
Sausage Patties (6)

Scrambled Eggs (1/2 plate)
Sunnyside up Eggs (2)

Hash Browns (1 plate, stacked up about as high as I'd say three or four pancakes tall)

I wasn't planning to eat the entire tray of food, but I was always taught to take more than you think you can eat at buffets, no matter what the sign says. You can never know what one particular place does better than another. That's why I always load up for the first trip and find out what's good. Then, on the second trip, I only pick up the things that passed muster and concentrate on filling up on those items only.

With the rules as they were, though, I would have no chance to load up again. In that spirit, I took enough to fill up on whatever I decided was good on the first run-through. Again, I had no motivation to plow through the entirety of my breakfast.

That is, until the person charging me at the register took a gander at my tray. Nominally, she was there just to oversee that all the students' breakfast got charged to the school's account. But she had other designs. Every student that passed her way she made a point to greet and get to know. She had probably the most pleasant personality I've ever seen in a food service worker. She was the type of employee and job would be glad to have because not only did she make her customers smile, but she brightened up the other employees around her. The best description I could give of her was she was like Little Miss Chipper all grown up.

When it came time for me to pass her way her face spread out into a huge grin.

"Now, child, just how many people are you eating for?"

"Um, myself?" I offered sheepishly.

"And you seriously plan on eating all six plates in one sitting."

If that wasn't a challenge, then I don't know what was. Suddenly, what had originally began as a ploy to hedge my bets on eating the best items the buffet had to offer, became a direct affront to my manhood. I couldn't just let it slide.

"Yes, I do."

She laughed, drawing the attention of everyone around her.

"I tell you what. I bet you fifteen dollars, which was going to be my lunch today, that you can't clean up every single plate on your tray," she told me with the confidence of someone who was accustomed to sizing up someone at first glance.

"Fifteen dollars? No tricks?"

"If you can finish it, it'll be worth fifteen dollars just to see you do it."

I smiled and walked my tray to a nearby table where I knew she could see me. I called my friends over as witnesses and got down to the business of eating.

I used to think she made the bet with me to tease me, sure that there was no way I could win it. Maybe I thought that's the way most adults were, setting limits for children because they thought they knew everything. Back then I was so adamant about finishing everything because I wanted to prove her wrong. I wanted to be right so badly about my eating capabilities that I disregarded any shred of restraint I should have had. What I ate that day pushed me past a condition of full, or of being stuffed. I was literally gorging myself. Yes, I've always been a fan of breakfasts, but the amount of food I ate that morning was probably double the amount of any previous meal I ever ate up to the point. I didn't care. All that mattered to me was that I proved an adult mistaken, this particular adult especially. I've always been defiant about being told what I can and can't do. Breanne and I share that same stubborn quality. I wasn't about to let this one stranger, who had never seen me eat before--to say nothing of hearing about my thirty hash brown exploits a few days prior--get the better of me.

Now I can see I was probably wrong. She probably was as happy as she pretended to be. Rather than her challenging me to make fun of me or to discount my talents, she probably was just looking for a way to amuse herself. She probably did believe I could finish my food if I put my mind to it and was merely goading me into making a spectacle of myself, which I did quite handily. She probably was just looking for a bit of fun and I was more than willing to oblige.

I don't know--it's not often I meet someone who I feel doesn't have a hidden agenda and is as sincerely happy as her demeanor would suggest. That smiling, joking clown of a woman may have been the first of that kind I've ever run into.

When I inevitably finished the food I think I collected my reward with a bit more arrogance than I had intended to. I kind of accepted my money with a bit of "in-your-face" bravado. She took it all in stride, smiling and saying that it was worth her money to have a front-row view of a piece of gastronomic artistry that I unveiled that morning. She told me an eating performance like that comes along only so often and that I had pretty much made her week for her.

That story is one I always tell me because it's still rather funny to me that I let a random waitress compel me into trying to burst my own stomach. But I also tell it as an example of what a magical trip that was and what kind of magical people I met during my time there.

Because that's what she was, someone who was so joyful and jubilant that I have never run into since. She, like the Holy Grail of Milkshakes, like the thirty hash browns, like the six plates of food, is a once-in-a-lifetime type of encounter, never to be duplicated and always to be cherished.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers