One of my most favorite things to do on the planet is to go to breakfast.  One might think that something so mundane should not warrant such significance in my life.  But I’m not talking just any breakfast. I have a formula, a very specific set of requirements that need to be met in order to achieve that ultimate breakfast experience that I often crave. First of all, the location.  It should be an old-fashioned diner-style restaurant with huge, laminated menus, plastic tablecloths, and ceramic mugs with the restaurant name on the side that you can barely read any more due to the hundreds of trips through the dishwasher.  Family-owned is a plus. You know the place.  Secondly, the food. Menu items should be good, down-home country cooking with lots of viable options that can be covered in white sausage gravy. And lastly, and the most important component that ties it all together, is the waitress.  Ideally, the waitress would be a little older, but not grandmotherly – more like that crazy favorite aunt, full of spit and vinegar with a hearty laugh and a hairstyle that may demand a few doubletakes from any new visiting patrons.  She is a big, warm hug personified. She probably smokes. And the most critical part- she will generally personalize every one of her questions with a classic southern term of endearment. “What can I get for you, Sugar?”; “More coffee, Sweetie?; “Will that be it for today, Baby”.  I eat that stuff up. I’m not quite sure what this says about me, especially in this day and age when such personal handles may be interpreted as being overly or inappropriately familiar. But the coziness and comfort conveyed by a well-placed “Honey” from a lady who you just know would give the greatest hugs just cannot be underrated.  

Finding just the right ratio of these three necessary components for the perfect breakfast experience is not always easy, but not long ago, I happened upon the breakfast trifecta at a nearby diner called Cindi’s. Now, I generally like my greasy spoons to be a bit greasier than Cindi’s, but the food is good, and Peggy turned out to be the waitress of my dreams, so much so that I could overlook any shortcomings against the formula in the first two components. The balance was good. 

Peggy was younger than my idealized breakfast muse, and she had long straight brown hair pulled back into a clip that wasn’t particularly noteworthy, but what she was lacking in prescribed physical attributes, she more than made up for in sass, spirit and “Sugar”s.  She had a booming voice that was louder than it needed to be and sported an accent that declared that she grew up in East Texas as soon as she opened her mouth.  You knew that her friends would describe her as never having met a stranger.  She was quick with a laugh and could engage with her customers in a way that felt less superficial than it actually was.  It was clear that Peggy was a welcomed part of these customers’ mornings.

It quickly became routine for me to come into Cindi’s two or three times a week.  Each morning would play out in the same way as if it were scripted. I would sit down at a table in Peggy’s section.  She would swing by with a big grin and a coffee pot. “Good morning, Sweetie.  The usual?”  The usual was two eggs over medium, bacon, and whole wheat toast (the stacks of pancakes with copious amounts of butter and breakfast syrup were typically reserved for the weekend when calories don’t count). There would always be some pleasantries exchanged.  “What are you up to today, Hon?”  “Oh, as little as I can get away with”. And we would laugh. After I cleaned my plate, got a coffee to go, and paid the check, I would say my goodbyes, and she would reply back, “Okay, Baby.  You have a good day.  See you next time.”

This early morning bliss continued for several weeks and was the perfect way to start my day. I was in breakfastopia. And then one day, everything changed.

It was a morning like any other. I grabbed a table in Peggy’s section, ordered the usual, and started scrolling through a fresh crop of daily emails on my phone. Minutes later, Peggy brought over my plate of eggs, bacon, and toast.  As she turned to walk away, she suddenly stopped and took a step back.  “Honey, what is your name?”  I told her, and she smiled, “Well, I’m glad I know that.” She winked and walked away.  I finished up my eggs, got my coffee to go, waved goodbye to Peggy and headed toward the door, ready to face my day. Peggy smiled her big smile from across the room, waved to me and called out, “Have a great day, Kevin.”

Wait. What?  I’m certain I stopped in my tracks to process what I had just heard. She called me Kevin. This just didn’t feel right. 

A couple of mornings later, I walked back into Cindi’s and sat in Peggy’s section as usual. I had an uneasy feeling.   It was as if I could already see how this morning would play out.  Peggy came over with a smile and a coffee pot. “Morning, Kevin. How are we today?” There it was. She did it again. She called me Kevin. And then she did it again. And again. No more Sweetie. No more Baby or Honey. Just Kevin. I felt very empty. The spell had been broken.  The precarious balance of location/food/waitress had suddenly been disrupted. A line had been crossed and nothing would be the same again.  I wanted to ask her to forget my name and go back to calling me by her pet nicknames, but that wasn’t the sort of thing one would request without sounding like (or in fact, being) a total weirdo.  It had to be natural, organic, spontaneous.   

I came back to Cindi’s for breakfast a few more times, but I soon found myself trying breakfast at different diners in the area, trying to rediscover the magic that I had enjoyed with Peggy and Cindi’s. I’m not sure if I’ll ever find that perfect combination again, but if I do, and the waitress one day happens to ask me my name, I think I’m going to tell her that my name is Baby.