Uncle Louis

Last weekend, I ate breakfast with good friends at Uncle Louis Cafe in Duluth. It's a hole-in-the-wall kind of diner. It's a place where you can get a full breakfast for five bucks, never see the bottom of your coffee cup, and cheer on the latest challenger to the pancake-eating record (eight or nine cakes) tacked to the wall behind the counter.

Even though I moved away two years ago, the purple-haired waitress at Louis still knows exactly what I want.

She was scribbling my order down as she approached the table. "You havin' your usual?"

"What else would I order?"

"You know, we changed things up a little bit since you've been gone. You can get french toast instead of pancakes, if you want."

"I'll stay with the chocolate-chip pancakes."

"Alright, but chocolate-chip french toast is pretty good, too." She scribbled something more down. "You going with the hashbrowns today?"

"You know it," I replied.

She eyed me skeptically. "You sure? Remember you didn't finish it last time."

"That was months ago." I grasped for any shred of redeeming evidence. "I'm hungry enough."

"Alright, alright," she said.

The purple-haired waitress returned a half-hour later to clear the plates from our table. She shook her head when she saw mine.

"You did a shit-job eating your breakfast."

"I'm sorry. I'll start training on the weekends."

"You said that last time you were here and you still didn't finish."

I threw my hands up. "You're right. I'm a bum." I shook my fist in the air and cried, "I coulda been a contender. I coulda been a contender."

She laughed, leaving behind a tab, written in that secret diner script, for the four of us to puzzle over and split.