superheroes

dear rory,

sometimes, me and a couple Mexicans team up to save the world.

working at a BBQ smokehouse restaurant… it means I show up, tie my hair in a knot, don an apron, shove my disobedient bangs into my viser, clock-in, and slap on a smile.

actually, most of the time, the smile just appears naturally. no slap needed. sometimes I wish it would disappear. it’s not recommended that us employees laugh at customers. but sometimes I can’t help it.

like the time an older gentleman slowly inched his car up to the drive thru, rolled down his window and said with a crinkly-eyed smile on his Santa Claus face, “well, hello there miss smiley! and what grade are you in?”
or the time I had a man in a purple jumpsuit struggle his way back up to the counter and stand before me mid-fake-coughing fit.

yes, it was fake. I could tell.

he stood there gasping and hacking and turning red from his efforts at pretend coughing. so I stood there and politely watched him choke. finally he pulled out some money and shoved it in my hand. “that… *fake cough*… BBQ sauce you gave me… *fake cough. cough.*… it was hot!!!” I asked him which sauce he had ordered. he paused and thought. “well… uh… hot.”

he forgot to cough.

“oh, I’m sorry, sir,” I said with the money still lying there limply in my hand. mentally I added, “how could I forget to warn you that the hot sauce was hot?”

now that his fake cough was momentarily healed and I could hear his voice, I noticed that it matched his purple jumpsuit… strange. “it’s all right. it’s all right,” he said with a purple jumpsuit smile, “but I heard that dairy is good for a cough… *relapses into pretend coughing again*… so I’d like to order a brownie.”

brownie delivered and eaten in front of me. purple jumpsuit man miraculously healed of his cough. Dr. Renee had done it again.

***

but not everyone who comes into the restaurant lights up my day just because they are weird.

as strange as this sounds, I am coming to a conclusion in life: I think angels appear to humans as BBQ-eating, older, black gentlemen.
you heard me right.

no, I am not crazy. (hey, they haven’t proven it yet anyways…)

a few weeks ago, I was feeling impatient. about everything. I was feeling like I’m at a standstill in life. I don’t know about college, I don’t know about work, I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, I don’t know anything. I’m just an eighteen-year-old girl with big dreams (that sounds so Disney. yuck.) in a big world with lots of big people doing big things about their big ideas and yeah. too many big thoughts for one little person like me.

because there I was. stuck at work. sweaty. not having a particularly sparkling sort of day. I was feeling impatient because I want certain things to happen in my life, but I don’t know when they will or how they will.

basically, if we had scrubbed the makeup off my pretend mood that day, you would have seen a big ugly “I WANT WHAT I WANT NOW” pimple glaring angry red at you.

but with my mask on, I trudged out into the dining room to see if anyone needed anything. and that’s when I saw my angel.

he was sitting alone at a booth looking out the window.

“Sir,” I said like the meek little person I was pretending to be, “Can I clear your dishes for you?”

he turned and looked at me with his grave, old eyes and replied with a “thank you, yes”.

“how was everything tonight?” I asked.

as I spoke, it was as if I had dropped a light into the deep wells of his midnight eyes… I watched them sparkle brighter as my lantern of words fell from my mouth.

“young lady,” he said smiling, “have you ever seen a plate licked so clean?” I watched his face and forgot to look at the plate BEFORE I shook my head in agreement. I couldn’t look away from him. he was so interesting. the corners of his mouth turned up and created a sprinkling of wrinkles on weathered face. “I bet it’s nice working around all this delicious food,” he continued.

I mentally shook my brain awake and managed to say, “yes, but unfortunately I can’t eat as I work… so it’s sort of torturous.”

“well,” and he grabbed his hat as he spoke, “you know what they say…”

no, I didn’t know what they said. who are “they” and what do they “say” I wanted to know!? I was afraid he wouldn’t finish. he stood up slowly. I continued to stare.

“… they say that the good things in life are worth waiting for.”

and with that he left me standing there lost in thought. I had needed to hear that. to be reminded that waiting isn’t a bad thing. especially when I’m waiting on God. who is the author of good things.

when I looked up again, he was at the door. he walked out. I haven’t seen him since. kind of strange considering it was plate-licking good food…

***
but I guess I should explain now how me and my fellow Mexican co-workers save the world.

last week, I was working front cash-register. it was around three in the afternoon and the restaurant was dead. not a sign of intelligent life anywhere. because, of course, me and Reyes were not being very intelligent as we waited for the dinner rush to arrive. he’s shorter than me (as most Mexicans and, in fact, as most of the human race, are) and so we were goofing off by walking around the restaurant like midgets and giants. for once, I let him be the giant, and I got to be the midget. he likes it when I’m the midget. he stands on his tip-toes and towers over me and bosses me around.

it’s silly, but whatever.

as we were goofing off, a family walked into the restaurant. a husband and wife, their two kids, and a very old looking couple… probably the grandparents or great-grandparents. I stood up straight and walked casually back to the register awaiting their orders.

they took a long time looking at the menu. longer than usual. so I silently played a game called, “evaluate these total strangers as fast as I can”. my first evaluation led to several beliefs: one, they did not eat out very often. two, they weren’t very well-off. three, they were stressed. and four, the little four-year-old girl with big glasses and her five-year-old brother were the cutest little kids I had seen in a long time.

finally, they ordered. I rang up their bill. it was high. the grandparents didn’t offer to pay. they stood there stonily.

the mom reached into her purse, pulled out a card, and handed it to me. “we’ll put $25 on here and use another card for the rest.” I smiled at her tired face and nodded.

the card was declined. she looked flustered and her husband looked concerned as he took the card back from me. “here, just use this one,” she said shoving another card into my hands. the grandparents looked gloomily on. but the kids were smiling as they waited for their food. this card worked and I handed it back to the lady and tried to catch her eye as I handed her the receipt. she was too busy listening to her husband talk about the declined card.

Reyes and I got the food ready, and then he went in the back. I stayed up front and pretended to clean already clean counters as I watched this family.

after a bit, I worked up the courage to stroll out there. “how was everything today?” my voice automatically said. they all agreed it had been very good, and a bunch of empty plates blinked their assent back at me.

“look, I ate all of my food!!!!” the little girl said to me. her big eyes watched me through her strong lenses. There wasn’t a scrap of food left on her plate. the boy called my attention to his empty plate too and I saw the mom smile at her kids. I could tell this had been a special treat to them. all of them.

“I’ll be right back to clear your plates,” I said more to myself than to them as I walked away. my heart was racing and I marched straight into the office where Reyes was spinning in his chair talking to one of the dish washing guys.

“Reyes, I need a cookie.” I said it before I had even thought about it.

“a cookie, honey?”

“Yeah, one of those really big ones. I saw them in the fridge. I’ll pay for it later.”

“why do you need a cookie?”

“for those little kids,” and I gushed as much of the story to him as I could in five seconds.

“all right,” he said. he was smiling. he was curious. he probably thought I was crazy. but he was interested. and behind his smile, there was a question.

I walked back out to the table. the stony grandparents. the bubbling kids. the worn parents. I smiled at them all. bending down closer to the mom, I asked, “do you mind if I bring out a cookie for the kids to share? the cookies are really big, and I thought they might enjoy sharing one.”

she looked surprised. then her surprise metamorphosed into a grin. when she smiled like that, she lost about ten years. “what is it?” the husband asked.

“she wants to bring the kids a cookie.”

“a cookie!!!!?” the two little ones cried. “can we mom?” she laughed and said that would be fine.

so I floated back to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest cookie I could find and carried it back out to the kids as if it had been the Superbowl trophy. they all thanked me again and again. the kids. the parents. even the grandparents.

I felt a little silly again as I walked away. what was a cookie?

but it struck me.

a cookie is a smile. and that family was in need of a smile.

as I got ready to leave work, I called Reyes over. “I still need to pay for that cookie,” I explained. he smiled again with that question behind it.

“They needed that cookie.”

he gave me the total. I think he charged less than he should have. but as I dug around in my wallet, I couldn’t find any dollar bills. “I think I’m going to have to use my card.”

just then, one of the other guys I work with walked over. he had seen me give the cookie to those kids. and he had been watching me try to find the money to pay for it. he had the same questioning smile that Reyes had. he gently pushed me away from the register and pulled out his own money. “I got it,” he said to me.

I walked out to my car that day and remembered that just because there is a lot of bad in the world, doesn’t mean that there can’t be a lot of good. and sometimes, it’s the super tiny, almost embarrassingly insignificant things that can brighten someone’s day.

I think I’ll open a cookie stand. it’ll only cost you a smile.

***

well, this letter was crazy long. congrats if you made it to the end.

until next time,

muffin