A Thanksgiving Story (I swear it's true!)

It was 1995, we worked tech support for a contractor to one of the biggest "traditional" computer makers in the world, (no not THAT one), and were nursing users through the conversion from Windows operating directly in DOS to Windows 95, for free.
This company had taken their line of low end business computers and added a tiny amount of video capability to them and sold them as home use PC's all over the country.
It was Thanksgiving Day and my single buddy and I, selected by lack of family preference had been told that not only did we as senior techs have to WORK on the holiday but, that while we fielded calls we'd have to supervise the room.
Add that we had to work 16 hour shifts for straight time.

As another friend of mine put it, "it's a great place to work if you've never heard of Abraham Lincoln."

So we get there at 5AM, we setup and as they come in, we get the rest of the guys and girls who've been coerced into working on Thanksgiving up and running and actually the day went pretty well.
Some of the folks working had brought turkey and things to go with, and I'd made a huge pot of iced tea and since there were no "suits" about we ate at our desks.

That was lunchtime and now, five hours later we aren't so much hungry as antsy just to get out of the canned air and florescent lights after handholding not only the customers but our co-workers for over twelve hours straight.
My buddy stands up on the Supers desk and announces "we are going to dinner!"
A perceptible moan rises from those not on calls and a couple of the younger ones actually stood up and yelled 'don't LEAVE us!". We went out the door.

It is Thanksgiving night though, we are in Lake Mary Florida, (eleven years ago!), right on the interstate which is crammed with people going to or from Orlando and we want nothing to do with that!
Normally there are six fast food and two sit down restaurants we could have chosen but tonight it is either McDonalds or Bob Evans, so we choose Bob Evans.

If you've never seen a Bob Evans just imagine if Roy Rogers's son had been gay with bad, BAD taste in western decor, and mostly frozen food shipped in from the home office.

In we go, it's chilly for Central Florida so we drive over and hustle inside.

Seated by the manager we are told, "We have a limited menu today guys, sorry".
I resist telling him he has a limited menu EVERY day because it is after all, a holiday.

After a couple of seconds our waitress arrives. Which may have explained the limited menu.

Imagine now two middle aged guys, both bearded, but one with a white shirt and tie and red beard and crewcut and the other in a tie-dyed Grateful Dead t-shirt on and hair to his ass. (I'll let you guess which I am).

The waitress was a nice lady, kinda like the old saying 'she's a nice girl, makes all her own clothes, and ALL the girls love her', if you didn't notice the anchor tattoo on her right forearm.
The nose had, simply HAD to have been broken more than once and reset by some high school football coach working on a benchwarmer player with no parents.
Her teeth were all there, mostly... but were all different shades of brown or green.
The limited menu? Turkey, or Turkey & Dumplings, Turkey Salad sandwiches, or breakfast.

We were I think, the only customers in the place the entire time we were there. I had steak and eggs, My friend had corned beef hash and eggs and it took forever for them to come.
We'd been drinking callcenter coffee since four AM so we switched to unsweetened iced tea while we waited and the glasses were fairly small so we saw a LOT of this waitress which though memory of her name tag has faded, I'll call "Doris".

Finally the food came, we ate quickly because it really was time to get back and mastermind the shift change of the kids at the center, and we'd had plenty of Bob Evans, not to mention looking at Doris...

She brought the check and as it was my turn for lunch I paid it, but I began to remember all the little practical jokes my buddy had played on me in the last year or so... supergluing my mouse to the mouse pad, putting a screen cap of my desktop up as wallpaper while I was in the bathroom... lots of things.

So when Doris brought my credit card back for me to sign I looked her right in the eye (the green one), and said... "Are you single?"