A Late Night Scene from a Truck Stop Diner

Written this morning, after a late dinner last night:

It's 11 p.m. local time in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We leave the warmth of our truck, and after taking Cody to a patch of grass to do doggy things we put him back inside. I put up the hood of my jacket because the wind is so biting, and we walk briskly along the rows of idling trucks, and are soon inside the convenience store. We walk through the store to the restaurant and are immediately assaulted a haze of cigarette smoke.. We have stepped back in time to a place where smoking is permitted in restaurants. There isn't even a non-smoking section. I am ready to turn around and leave, but we decide to stay. The room is large, with an empty buffet in the centre, and booths around the periphery.


A small thin elderly man harriedly brings two menus to our table, and announces that he is "the only one" and asks for our patience. "No problem," we say. We're in no particular hurry, even though we're tired and hungry. I order a hot chocolate, and Mike asks for a diet Coke. The waiter painstakingly writes down our order in full on his note pad, and then hurries off. I watch him for a while. He is busy and quick, but entirely inefficient and disorganized.


My attention drifts to the occupants of the next booth, the one in the corner. After being together for the last few days and both being tired, Mike and I have temporarily more or less run out of conversation, so a little eavesdropping seems in order. Four people are at the booth. A very large bespectacled woman in her early forties has brought her two equally large bespectacled daughters, both in their early teens, along on a first date to meet a loud, obnoxious heavily tattooed man in his mid to late forties. The have talked on the phone before, but this is their initial meeting. The first question that enters my mind is "Why are they meeting at 11 p.m., and why aren't these poor girls at home in bed?"


The waiter scurries back to our table to take our orders. He writes down our orders in his longhand, and asks us what we'd like to drink. Um, a hot chocolate, and a diet Coke, please. "Right!" he says, "I knew someone wanted hot chocolate." Off he goes to the computer to enter the order.


The conversation next door progresses. She works hard, being a single mom, and all. He plays the drums, and has a photograph of his "ex" scotchtaped to the underside of one of his drumskins. She likes Fleetwood Mac and the Rolling Stones. He listens to country music. She blithely lights up cigarette after cigarette, while her youngest daughter intermittently sucks on a ventolin inhaler.

Our appetizer arrives, and our drinks arrive on the same tray, only to be taken away until the waiter circles around an empty table with them, before finally dropping the off to us. My hot chocolate is lumpy and the mug is slightly over half full. Soon after, our meals arrive, and they are surprisingly good.

The romance in the next booth is blossoming at breakneck speed. They happy couple not very subtly suggest to the two girls that they go watch some TV in the drivers' lounge, and once they are alone they immediately snuggle up together. He puts his arm around her; she kisses him on the cheek. They plan their future; he'll be moving in. The girls return, obviously not interested in watching Fox News. Tattooed-Guy asks the girls' permission to move in with their mom, then tells them he's doing it whether they approve or not. He chuckles. I feel slightly sick.

We finish eating, and eventually locate a sullen cashier. She grudgingly completes the cash transaction, and we head back to the truck for the night.

"God Help America," I think, as I drift off to sleep.