We were wrapping up our Senior Trip; the last big thing that we would do together as a class. Two or three of us girls – predisposed to feel a bit sad and a little sentimental about the whole thing were sitting at a table with two of the guys who were predisposed to pretend they didn’t.
We had just finished a great day at a local theme park – tired but happy after having spent the day riding rides, eating way too much cotton candy, way too many funnel cakes (my personal favorite) and, for some of us, at least one giant pretzel. We had just been seated at our hotel restaurant…ready to eat again as only 17-year-old kids are capable of doing. This may not seem the likeliest place for a lesson in human nature to play out, but it sure was and it sure did.
We had picked up our menus and were in the middle of two or three conversations at once when our waitress made her way to our table. I don’t remember her name; I’ll call her Laurie.
She really couldn’t have been that much older than us, probably mid to late 20’s if memory serves me correctly. She had been to a couple of other tables; some of our friends, our class sponsors and a few other hotel guests were sitting not far from us. Poor thing, Laurie was one of maybe two waitresses who had the care of the whole dining room. She arrived at our table with an attitude, and it wasn’t very pretty. We could tell she was tired. We could tell she didn’t want to be there. We could tell that she was probably at the tail end of a long day. Her voice, her short answers and her general moodiness told us these things – all before she took our drink order. And her facial expression? Well, that sort of put an exclamation point at the end of it for us. She asked what we wanted to drink and disappeared.
We looked at each other and someone said, “Man, she doesn’t look happy; I wonder what it would take to get her to smile.”
We looked at each other for a few seconds longer – and with the impetuousness of 17 – decided to see if we could make it happen.
Well, well, well.
Anybody out there under the mistaken impression that high school guys can’t turn on the charm? Not true. And if any of you have the idea that high school girls can’t do the same thing…well, then you should have been in Kansas City on that mellow evening in mid-May.
Laurie had no idea what she was in for. I don’t even think the five of us kids really thought things through. We were just at the end of a fun day, and this little experiment seemed like adding to it. We were going to see what it took to make a difference, and in the process…we made a difference.
Laurie came around the corner, balancing a tray full of drinks in one hand and a basket full of bread in the other…which were all served up with a nice side of crabbiness.
One of the guys glanced sideways at me and went into action: “Hey, thanks! That was quick.”
Laurie looked at him with an expression of surprise and muttered, “You’re welcome.”
Someone else piped up with a variation of “Ok, so I’m starving. What should it be…burgers or chicken?”
The rest of us were sort of watching; sort of half paying attention really – waiting to see Laurie’s response. Surely she could smile, right? I mean, she had a mouth…and we were being kind of charming.
“How’s your day going, Laurie?”
“Been busy tonight?”
“We graduate in a couple of days.”
Ten minutes later, she had cleared away our salad plates and there was a smile on her face. She knew where we were from and what we had been up to all day – and we knew a thing or two about her. There was a little spring in her step as she walked back to the kitchen – balancing a tray of empty dishes, salad forks and cracker baskets in one hand – and one barely-touched salad in the other. Who knew blue cheese dressing tastes nothing like cheese?
By the time our main course was complete and dessert had been ordered, Laurie was laughing with us. The tired look on her face had disappeared and she was stopping by our table way more often than she needed to. She was being who she really was…kind, friendly, and we liked her! I didn’t think about it then, but I have since. The first version of Laurie we had encountered was the tired Laurie, the perhaps overworked or unappreciated Laurie – who just happened to cross our paths during the last few hours of a long day…doing whatever she needed to do to get to the other end of it.
When it came time to pay the check, we pooled our money and left her a pretty great tip. We wanted to finish the night off with an exclamation point of our own. On our way out of the restaurant, we were stopped by Mrs. Pinkerton, one of our sponsors – who also happened to be one of our favorite teachers. She told us that Laurie had stopped by and said “that group of kids over there is something else, nothing like the kids I usually serve” and she wanted our sponsors to know that we had made her day. The five us thanked Mrs. Pinkerton and left the room. We didn’t talk much about it after that…it was kind of a little thing to us, I suppose.
I remember thinking about it before falling asleep that night, though…the knowledge that we had turned a day around for someone was just kind of sweet.
I have carried that memory with me for years. I’m sure Laurie never thinks of us now…after all we were one table full of people in a steady stream of tables full of people she saw over the course of her week. But, I knew that for one evening of one day, we had made a difference for her. And since our lives are entirely made up of one moment after another – one day after another, we are constantly faced with these little run-ins…opportunities that seem so unimportant, innocuous and haphazard.
Maybe some of them are. But then again, maybe they’re not.
I think we should err on the side of hope…and believe that these moments can change the course for someone, for us even. We can believe that – and live like we believe that – or we can move through our days in a blur of self-centeredness, never really looking at the people who share portions of those same twenty-four hours with us.
I think, more than anything, what that evening with Laurie gave to me was a realization that it really isn’t very hard to make a difference…to change the course of someone’s day. What we’ve been told since we were children is true – it’s the littlest things that make the biggest impact on people. Other than a tip, there was not one material thing that we gave to Laurie. The value in that evening for her – and consequently to five high school seniors – was in things of the soul where lives are molded and shaped into what CS Lewis calls “immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” We get to do that for those who share the bits and pieces of our days, and in the process we are helping ourselves get to one of those ends as well.
I sat at my desk tonight and thought of the people that I see daily, but don’t “see”, and it reminded me of the lady at my dry cleaners, the UPS guy who drops Amazon orders on my doorstep regularly, the guy who stood behind me in the long check-out line at Walgreens the other day, the tired mom who used to come to the school play with three kids – and a husband who didn’t come with her that day…or any day.
We can help. We should help.
I like to think that those of us who were in that dining room were helping Laurie of Kansas City become the best possible version of Laurie of Kansas City. I hope that we helped form her and shape her into something that led her somewhere better – even if it was just to be a better co-worker to the other lone waitress in that hotel dining room for that one evening.
Maybe I’m wrong and somewhere, wherever she is, Laurie remembers us. She just happened to be the unconscious – yet happy – recipient of a hasty decision made by five kids, two or three days before we graduated and went out to take on the world.
I suppose there’s a chance she internalized the happiness of that evening, then woke up the next morning and paid it forward.
Anyway, I hope so.
(Photo credit: Brad Holliday)