Writer's Grove

Meditating in Waffle House

Until this year, I’d never walked into a Waffle House. Inexplicably, they decided to build one in the midst of a fairly suburban neighborhood; I don’t know what sort of nightlife they thought they’d be catering to, but there it was. Open 24 hours. I went in there to get some papers graded one night, and discovered that I didn’t mind their coffee at all. I was also mildly entertained by the employees yelling at each other and complaining about their lot in life. It reminded me of my years as a waiter; when you’re in food service, complaining about customers and schedules and other people not doing their side work is de rigueur.

Next time I went in, I enjoyed not only the coffee and the employee side show, but the other customers as well. There was an intense young professional talking to his Bluetooth the whole time he was shoveling eggs into his mouth; he was trying to track a shipment of something to Ohio. A couple chairs down from him was a massive individual covered in tattoos and wearing sunglasses. He didn’t move for fifteen minutes; he might have been asleep, or he might have been practicing Zen meditation. Or perhaps he was trying to stay very still so that the two cops in the joint wouldn’t notice him. Three emo kids with hoodies and sullen expressions commiserated in a booth about how stupid everybody was in the whole world. “If only they weren’t so effing stupid,” one of them said. “Yeah, man,” his friend agreed. “I feel ya, bro,” the last one assured him. If only! In another booth, two geeks were taking a break from playing World of Warcraft by talking incessantly about World of Warcraft. A retired couple sat some distance away, saying nothing to each other, but occasionally chuckling at the same time I was smiling to myself at something I overheard. They were people watching, like me.

Here’s comedian Jim Gaffigan on Waffle House:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz1cfwFmv1w[/youtube]

And apparently the chili is good, though I have yet to try it. Some guy named Bert made it…and some pop rockers wrote a song about it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZYrWcgX3-g[/youtube]

It’s actually somewhat frightening to see how many musical tributes there are to Waffle House. Not sure why somebody thought it would be a good idea to take ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man” and turn it into “Southern Classic Cooking”—that doesn’t even scan—but here’s the result:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx21Fv12UDk&feature=related[/youtube]

Cheers.