Somewhere in my adolescence, my mom decided to drop out of the corporate world and go back to working in restaurants. At the time I couldn’t understand why — she always came home tired and smelling of a mix between the daily special and dish sanitizer. We also ended up in a different tax bracket. While I could tell she was generally happier, it wasn’t until many, many years later when I had to deal with corporate politics of my own that I could understand what drove her away.
On the weekend nights when she’d have to close, I would try to stay up and wait for her. The consequences of this were two-fold: I was pushed further down the dark path into becoming a night person, and I learned to love the questionable cuisine of all-night diners.
After spending all day around barbecue or pasta or beer, the last thing she wanted was to eat what was on offer at work, and even worse, cook. Our options were limited, so we became regulars at Denny’s, Village Inn, and the independent place that had good onion rings. This was our bonding time, the time that kept us from growing apart in those troubled teenage years. The foodie in me regrets those patty melts and home-fry and egg skillets, but the dime store psychologist in me knows that if every mother and child could share just a few of those meals, fewer very special episodes and interventions would be shared as well.
I really couldn’t tell you what we talked about now. Sometimes it was important, but most of the time it was old fashioned kibitzing. One thing I do remember though: the Asian Amway meetings. I think they were just after midnight, going from Saturday into Sunday. We would go to the restaurant down off the highway, and our food would have just arrived when a big table — 8- or 10-top — would get sat in the middle of the restaurant. All Asian, all in business attire; ties for the men and skirts/dresses for the women. We usually sat pretty near them, and I don’t think we ever paid attention to what they said — we just decided it was the post-Amway meeting pancakes and pie. They were there as often as we were. I wonder if that group noticed us and made up stories to explain why we were eating the same thing and re-hashing the same questions.