Money and Memory

I've already climbed pretty high on the Google search for "Cave of Forgotten Dreams."  I'm going to have to quit it.  I got tons of hits from that search yesterday.

But what else is there to do?

I am curious about the memory of waitresses.  Either I am spending way too much money eating out, or I'm missing a lot of opportunities.  I go to a diner about every couple weeks to get breakfast.  Nothing special.  I went two weeks ago and the waitress who took my order said, "What's your name?  Everyone in here seems to know you, so I need to remember what you get."  I didn't think everyone in there knew me.  I come in, sit at the counter, order, eat, pay, and leave.  I leave a twenty percent tip.  I don't talk to anyone.  When I went in yesterday, I had that same waitress, the one who waited on me once.  She knew what I wanted.

"Same thing?  You want a small or large orange juice?"

I watched her as she worked.  She didn't look like a genius or someone with a photographic mind.  In fact, and I know how wrong it is to say this, she looked a bit simple.

In the evening, I went to a little fish shack that I go to again about once every two weeks.

"Hey, C.S.."

This from a new waitress who, like the one at breakfast, has waited on me once.  You have to order at the counter.  They give you a little metal holder with a card they write your name on.  You take it to your table with you so they can find you when the food is ready.

"Do I need one of the little name holders?"

"No, they know you."

I forget the names of people I work with.  I have relatives I don't see whose names escape me.

"Mom, what's Ethel's son's name, the one with the short leg?" I'll ask when family stories come up at dinner.

So tell me, am I spending too much money or does money make you remember things?

"No, pal, you're special."

That is what I want to hear, of course.  We all do.  

Which segues, sort of, into what I haven't been able to write the past few days.  It is sort of contrapuntal to that.  It, too, is about being remembered.

O.K.  I've tried for the longest time here, but I still can't get it right.  Maybe someday.

So I'll end with this.  Q gave me his old iPhone ever so long ago when he got his new one.  It wouldn't cost me anything more to use it than to continue using my old Razor.  But I haven't because I don't want to be playing with my phone all the time.  Meeting up with the prodigal girl, though, I realized that I was being what I don't want to be, don't like to see in others.  It is an ideological stance, no?  Maybe Q is right.  Facebook.  Twitter.  They are all tools at our fingertips.  I don't know.  Perhaps I am going to switch over today.  The devil can have me.  I may enter into century twenty-one.