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2002-12-27
I met my parents at the Friendly's in Walpole for breakfast last Sunday, the 22nd. They go out to breakfast almost every day, most of the time to Ann's Luncheonette in Westwood which is run by Ralph. Ralph is a bald man who takes that bald-means-virile stuff seriously. He has a faked-up Playgirl magazine cover with his photo on it. Still, it's a place that when my folks walk in, everyone says hi. Ralph himself looks up from the colossal grillfull of potatoes to say hello. My mother and I start bussing the four tables from the time we walk in, just for the fun of it. We pour coffee from the coffee warmer on the far table. On Sundays, Ralph won't open Ann's so my parents do a Breakfast Circuit. This day it was Friendly's in Walpole, across from the Building 19 on Route One.

I was driving down from Salem, they were driving from church and I was trying to coincide my arrival with theirs. I was a little delayed, they had to kill some time so they drove up to Walmart's further up on Route One. I didn't know that when I pulled into the Friendly's parking lot, parked and dashed in, looked for them left and right.

It was the first time I almost mistook my parents for every other couple with gray hair. The place was full of their people: people over 70. They were definitely not there -- though I almost had to look twice at everyone to be sure -- and I got a funny feeling and not-funny thoughts. Where are they why aren't they here did they get in an accident did someone have a heart attack. I finally just called them on the cell and they told me of the Walmart timekiller.

The food was okay, barely. This is another place, in a long list, where the wait staff act like you've just asked them to solve a mystery when you ask for a two-egg omelette versus a three-egg omelette. It just baffled the waitress, threw her way off. Finally she confessed her confusion, "I don't know how to charge for it."

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