What small prairie town would be complete
without its mom-and-pop café? Known for good home cooking, their menus offer
the basics: roast beef dinners with pie and ice cream, burgers with fries, and
hot turkey sandwiches on white bread and swimming in gravy. A jukebox in the
corner, a long counter with revolving stools covered in red or black vinyl, and
a wide array of candies, chips, and cigarettes lined up behind.
The summer after Grade Eight, I was hired to
work at the Amaranth Café. A road construction crew had come to the area that
summer and stomped in every day for lunch and frequently for supper—not exactly
a disinteresting scenario for a teenage girl. Rose ran the bustling little business
and taught me how to wait tables, make milk shakes and ice cream cones, and
operate an ancient cash register. I learned to distinguish the roast beef from
the roast pork and keep the serviette dispensers filled. I remember washing a
lot of dishes, sweeping floors, and cleaning ashtrays. The smoking section was
the entire place.
I must have done all right, because by
mid-summer, Rose was leaving me in charge after the supper rush so she could go
to Bingo. At the mature age of 14, I became solely responsible to close at
9:00, sweep, mop, lock up, and put away the cash. Though it boggles my mind
now, I never thought about it then. But after my time there ended and I went
off to boarding school, I wrote Rose a letter thanking her for the opportunity.
I learned a lot, not just about work but about human nature.
One rush hour, I got yelled at and called
stupid by a grouchy old customer (in hindsight, he was probably 40) for
forgetting to bring bread with his meal. I apologized, served his bread, and
blinked back my tears for the next half hour, not having seen enough movies to
learn the spiteful things restaurant staff can do to get revenge on nasty patrons.
As the construction crew paid their bills and filed out, one of their young and
quite handsome members handed me a two-dollar bill and apologized for his mean
co-worker’s behavior. Two dollars! Unheard of. Tips at the time were dimes and
quarters, not dollars!
Suddenly, my day went from horrible to
wonderful.
I never learned that young man’s name, but I
learned how much power our words hold—especially over the young. 43 years have passed
and I still remember his kindness to me. Never underestimate your own power to
make or break someone’s day, and in those moments of frustration and
impatience, ask yourself, “what do I want to be remembered for?”
I wrote the date on that two dollar bill and
kept it, folded in my wallet, for years as a reminder that we always have a
choice to behave rudely or kindly. I would probably still have it if my wallet
hadn’t been stolen several years later. But that’s a story for another day.
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