Sweet Darlene’s Ain’t So Sweet

The second full day the folks were exploring Quartzsite for the first time, the weather was cold and windy. It wasn’t nice enough to walk around, looking at vendor tents and such. We figured we would pass some time and let the day warm up by going out to breakfast. We headed to one of our favorite restaurants in town, Sweet Darlene’s. Since we got there after 10am, there was plenty of parking to be found in the lot. We thought this was a good sign. Attempting to dine at that popular restaurant during prime hours would have resulted in an excruciatingly long wait.

We went inside to discover the restaurant less than half full, found an empty table in the far corner underneath a heating vent and waited for our waitress. She came and told us that she needed to get the orders at a larger table real quick and that she would be right back with us. Each time she passed, she said she would bring us something- menus, coffee, water. Yet each time, she forgot. She did end up bringing us coffee after 15 minutes, but forgot to bring the creamer. By the time our coffee was cold, she came back to take our order. We reminded her that we’d been given no menus. We asked her to get us fresh coffee too because we couldn’t drink it without the cream. She brought back cream and fresh coffees, served up with a sudden attitude, then left again, never to return.

We drank a few sips of our coffee, and then finally decided this place wasn’t quite working out for us. We went up to the register to pay for our coffee and a woman walked up to cash us out. She stood vigil behind the cash register, careful not to give any of us eye contact.

My father opened up his wallet. “We need to pay for four coffees.”

There was a long pause in the conversation as my father pulled out two dollar bills and some change.

“You could use some more help,” he declared.

“No,” said the cash register woman, “it’s just that those two big tables came in.”

She didn’t look at my father as she said this. She just opened up the cash register and held out her hand to take his money.

“Well,” said father, “little tables count too.”

The woman at the cash register slowly counted his change, still avoiding anything remotely resembling eye contact.

“I’m never coming back here again,” he said, hoping for some kind of apology.

She closed the drawer, and still not looking up from the cash register said, “That’s fine.”

And so, that marked the end of an era. We won’t be going back to Sweet Darlene’s because our little table didn’t count. We found another restaurant where our little table did count, and after breakfast, walked back into the cold, windy afternoon to see how we would spend our day.