“How many will be joining you?” the restaurant attendant asks as we enter the Denny’s on Lake Street. The three of us glance at each other, unsure of how to answer this simple question. Finally, after a few seconds of silence the Tall Blonde with striking blue eyes speaks up, giggling as she does so. She tells the attendant that we aren’t entirely sure how many will be joining us. The attendant, seemingly accustomed to this response, nods and smiles, and directs us to a large, empty section in the back.
The restaurant serves a different purpose to many people; for some it might actually be for food and for others it might be the prices. But for us it is like a drug – so the fact that their name is Lake Street Denny’s (nicknamed LSD’s) is quite ironic because for the teens in the surrounding neighborhoods it serves as a sort of drug. The restaurant leaves us with a high every time we leave; we always seem to want more – and even when we don’t want more we find ourselves returning every night.
As we are led to the back of the restaurant we pass only a few tables with guests to fill the seats. Near the front sits a quiet Hispanic family – the father enjoying a large breakfast with scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, and toast while the mother nibbles at her spicy buffalo chicken melt and the young boy plays with his grilled cheese. They seem focused on eating their meal and keeping to themselves and a part of me feels bad as we pass them because I know the noise and disturbance our group would most likely cause.
Sitting at a booth to the side are two girls talking leaning over the table to catch what the other is saying. One girl has short dark brown hair with bright pink highlights – she wears thick-rimmed black glasses that make her look creative to me. As I pass I can envision her sitting in a dark room painting abstract images with vivid acrylic paint while listening to loud music. The girl across from her is very thin and has longer black hair with a strong side part. She is very beautiful. She wears cigarette-cut black jeans and a loose black top that looks like it should be thrown back into the 80’s. They are both decorated with piercings and tattoos.
Sitting at the booth right behind them sits a guy and a girl, seemingly on a date that isn’t going so well. He is a slightly plump Chinese guy wearing a light blue polo t-shirt and has small silver rimmed glasses. Even sitting in the booth it is evident she is much shorter than he is. He is talking loudly to her about religion – as if trying to convince her that she was wrong in thinking her Christian God was legit. “It’s so obtuse to believe in a God that punishes innocent people,” he spat at her loudly as we passed. She sat, smiling and nodding lightly toward him but I could tell just by her response that she was not enjoying herself.
The attendant places our menus down at the booth and asks us what we would like to drink. This is not our usual waiter. The guy we usually get is named Dave and he is friends with all the regulars. He jokes with everyone about giving them a free meal and adding alcohol to their drinks. From my experience with the guy I would say people get along with him so well simply because he holds a parallel relation to their nicotine addictions. Ever since the restaurant switched to ‘No-Smoking’ in June of 2006, smokers all across the board seem to be finding a common ground in their mutual grievances. But like I said, he is not our waiter tonight.
“Dr. Pepper,” Travis – my big lipped, blue-eyed boyfriend – said in his usual mumbled tone. Our waiter looked at him blankly, and asked again. From this response it was easy to guess our waiter was new on the job. This time Travis looked up into the waiter’s eyes and repeated himself. The waiter wrote down the order and turned to the Blond-Haired blue eyed girl.
“Ummm. I’ll have a… coffee and water please.” He nodded and turned to me.
“Dr. Pepper and coffee please,” I said as I looked up to him and smiled. I felt bad already for this waiter – I knew the hassle our group would cause him and he seemed new at the job. The waiter left our table to retrieve our drinks; he first returned with the two coffees and a few minutes later with the Dr. Peppers and water. It wasn’t until the second chunk of our group arrived that he returned to take our order.
Shane, Tiffany, and Drew had arrived at the same time as Kevin, Jon, and Desmond. As they walked up to our table we made room – Travis scooted closer to me and the Tall Blond sat across from me. The Tall Blond made sure not to look up at them as they spread out around the table – she kept eye contact with me. This small, though still significant, action of hers makes me think she isn’t up for a ‘group thing’ tonight. She had a very long and challenging day and I don’t think the loud exterior of our group was what she wanted. As the new arrivers approached I deterred my gaze from the Tall Blond and glanced up at Kevin who was talking the loudest. Not only was Kevin loud but he also stands a full six feet from the ground. As he passed the quite Hispanic family they all glanced up at him – perhaps annoyed with his voice level – and I cringed at the prospect of their annoyance.
It’s hard to explain but their arrival would make the night. Shane, a disheveled and wide eyed guy, ordered a Dr. Pepper for himself and a hot chocolate for his girlfriend, Tiffany, who has your typical models body but wears oversized clothing. True to form, both Jon and Kevin ordered a Dr. Pepper. Drew and Desmond (or Big Dez as we call him due to his large physique), both low on cash, ordered a water. Drew always has a maniacal look in his eyes and Desmond is just like a big old teddy bear waiting to be hugged. The look in the waiters face already had a slight annoyance to it – I don’t think he was ready to wait on a large group, especially a loud and troublesome group. Unfortunately for him the group would only grow louder and more troublesome as the night went on.
The Tall Blond and I ordered a side of seasoned fries to share – Travis ordered a bacon burger with extra jalapeños. Shane and Tiffany, both exhausted from a long day at work and an even longer time until they could go to sleep, ordered a breakfast with extra toast. The waiter asked Shane what kind of toast he would like and in his exhaustion he simply shrugged and said “…buttered…” The table burst out laughing and Tiffany explained to him that the waiter meant what kind of bread, not how he took his toast. The girl sitting with her loud, opinionated date looked over to us and I think she was secretly wishing she was sitting at our table and not hers. Still, I imagine we were the least favorite kind of table for a waiter to be in charge of – we were large and not necessarily there for the food.
Jokes and laughter erupted from our group every couple of minutes. A few times I could swear I saw some glares from the table with the two girls. I guess our loud voices beat out their small, quiet conversation. Then Tiffany turned to both the Tall Blond and me and smiled mischievously. She followed in saying one word – one word that only the Tall Blond and I would understand, and one word that would send us all into fits of laughter for at least five minutes.
“Legend,” she said with a smile and turned to Shane laughing. I guess the funniest part of it was that it was an inside joke between only the girls and none of the guys knew what we were laughing at. Travis, slightly paranoid, thought it was something I’d told the girls about him and thought we were laughing at his expense so this small one-worded joke would soon send him into a pit of depression. Meanwhile, Shane rolled his eyes and turned to the guys to tell them, as if they didn’t already know, that the girls had an inside joke.
Drew requested I tell him what we were laughing at but I refused. I found it interesting that Drew was saying anything tonight – it usually seems that those who don’t order food are the ones who don’t talk much. Desmond, as per usual, did not order food and he was sitting at the end of the booth quietly. Drew then got a very intense look in his eye, that sort of maniacal look, and grinned to himself. In his best Arnold Schwarzeneggar impression he yelled “Do it now!” From that point forward, every time anyone asked anyone for anything, the following remark would be “DO IT NOW!” ‘Can someone please pass the salt?” someone would ask. In response, someone else would yell across the table: ‘Do it naahhww!’
Come the early hours of the morning when it is finally safe for Tiff and Shane to venture home and sneak into their room at Tiffany’s house, we would decide to leave LSD’s. Splitting the bill was always an adventure. The Tall Blond and I would pay with a credit card while the rest of the group would rummage through their pockets for money. Travis would give a dollar under what he owed because he rarely had enough to cover his tax – Kevin would chip in five dollars for his and Jon’s $1.50 glasses of Dr. Pepper. Shane and Tiff would always cover their part in full and often times paid separate from the rest of us. Any tip that we felt the need to leave was left up to the Tall Blond or me. The last thing we’d do before leaving is run a napkin across the table to wipe away the condensation that now covered the surface from our drinks. We paid the waiter at the cash register and he bid us good night even though he knew we’d be back the very next night.