After my husband, Dunn, passed away, the house felt too silent.
I took the job just to stay busy. To hear voices. To feel useful again.
Somehow, the diner became my anchor.
It’s also where Dunn and I first met.
Back in the early eighties, he walked in during a thunderstorm and asked for coffee strong enough to revive the dead.
I told him ours didn’t just wake them — it brought them back to life.
He laughed, came back the next day, and never really left.
When he was gone, the diner kept me standing.
Every shift feels like he’s still sitting at table seven, smiling over his mug.
I’m not the fastest server anymore, but I’m careful.
I remember orders. I don’t spill. I treat every customer the way I’d serve someone in my own kitchen.
Most people appreciate that.
But last Friday, during the lunch rush, someone didn’t.
A young woman walked in with her phone already held up, talking to it like the rest of us were background noise.
She sat in my section.
I greeted her politely and asked what she’d like.
Without looking at me, she announced her order to her camera — a salad prepared exactly her way, a sweet iced tea, nothing artificial, nothing “too hot.”
I wrote it all down and brought her drink.
She tasted it, frowned for the camera, and complained it wasn’t cold enough.
I offered a replacement.
No thank you. No acknowledgment.
