No, I Am Not A Thief

On any given night there is a strong chance I will be woke by a stray dog in the neighborhood. I sleep with my window open.

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It has decided to be Spring finally and it can't decide when to stop raining, so it has made it difficult to mow, and it is too cold too often. But at least it isn't snowing here like it has been in South Dakota.

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I had a bizarre thing happen at the diner. I sat down at the community table in the chair nearest the kitchen so I could chat with Sandy the owner and have a beverage. It was last Saturday evening late and my wife had already fed me a huge supper at home.

After maybe an hour I was momentarily alone as Sandy had wandered off to perform some task and I was reading some news, when suddenly from the kitchen through the vertically narrow window for food delivery the owner's grandson, the chef, asks me if I would like a sandwich.

Bear in mind it is not uncommon for me to both give and receive food as a gift at the diner, my home away from home. I am always sharing new recipes, home made brew and stew, a birthday cake or two, to name but a few. So I ask what kind of sandwich, and Gabe tells me it is an egg and bacon sandwich, but just as he was fixing to hand it to me declared, "Oh, I forgot the cheese!" and he sets it back down and jokes about how masterfully he cuts a piece of cheese with surgical skill, we laugh, and I ask for a side order of mustard, which he puts a spoonful and a half into a small glass container. I remembered that I had promised to get him some cake soon, but I haven't baked in quite a while.

So I thank him and simply turn to sit back down at my spot, and I get to about the middle of the second bite of sandwich even though it has LETTUCE on this sandwich, which I thought was bizarre.

Suddenly Sandy appears exasperated semi shouting, "Ernie! Why are you eating Hawk's sandwich!!!"

I am taken aback, and I said, "What?!?!? Gabe offered me a sandwich, so I just ate it! He asked me, 'Ernie, would you like a sandwich?'" Somehow Gabe thought it was my order, and what he probably said was, "Are you ready for your sandwich?" not wanting for me to have to wait for the waitress to get back to deliver it just 6 feet and get cold.

The waitress had seen me from across the room get the food from the window and had not heard any of my interaction with Gabe, so she had talked to Sandy before confronting me. So then everyone cracked up laughing and started teasing me about stealing food. Of course, I returned the favor.

The customer named Hawk was sitting in the closest booth to the south of me and he enjoyed the episode too. As the second sandwich arrived in the delivery window the waitress exclaimed, "Ernie, don't steal that second sandwich!!" and laughed, to which I waited until she delivered it to Hawk to say across the room, "Be sure to charge him for 2 sandwiches!!!" which cracked up everyone to laughing again. There were a few more lines that I have forgot by now.

About 5 minutes later Sandy decides to join me back at the community table with a plate of food, and I promised not to eat any of it. She laughed, and left to go back to the kitchen, AND what appears next?!?!?!? Sandy brings me out an unrequested bowl heaping with strawberry and chocolate ice cream!!!

She lets me know that the ice cream is actually a gift to her from another regular diner patron named Frankie. I tell her that I rarely receive things from Frankie, that my wife is usually the recipient of his gifts, as he always brings her things from the grocery store, as my wife cuts his hair. BUT that day I had actually received TWO things from Frankie indirectly, the ice cream being the second. But I told Sandy there was absolutely NO way she would ever be able to guess what Frankie had given me to give to my wife earlier that day. He had me follow him out to his truck at our place of business in order to give me an old dirty plastic bucket!!! He had given my wife one a couple months ago so that our dogs could have a larger water bowl at the house. And now they were getting another bucket for outside water.

So Sandy sits down to eat her supper and tells me that my event of eating the sandwich tonight reminded her of an old customer named Denver, now deceased, who used to come into the diner and would stand at the north end of the bar - Sandy turning left to point at the spot just across the aisle - and he would always drink these short bottles of beer (I forget the brand). She said that one night she caught Denver walking out the front door with an expensive compound plate and insulation pan underneath it piled high with hot Mexican food that he had taken right out of the food delivery window when no one was noticing! She hollered at him, "Denver! Get back here with my expensive plate and I'll put that food in a to-go container for ya!" So that explained why there had been several sporadic episodes where the waiter and the chef had gotten into arguments about missing plates of food, where Denver had absconded with meals. He would just wait for something of interest to show up and run off with someone's food.