Open Letter To Small-Town Diner Patrons

By Ron R. Clark

Gentlemen, ladies, all friendly citizens attempting to help this poor lost traveler: I sincerely appreciate your efforts, but when offering directional assistance to a stranger, please remember this one fundamental truth – I’M NOT FROM HERE!

My job as a software consultant for a transportation specialist requires travel to remote locations in order to ply my trade. More often than I’d like to admit, my itinerary calls upon me to leave Jethro’s Municipal Airport, Cropduster Depot and Bait Shop, rent whatever vehicle is left on the lot which doesn’t require a yoke and a good mount and drive two hours before hitting any type of crossroads craphole featuring electricity and running water. By the time I get to Sheepbanger Corners, I’m usually ready to eat my dashboard, so Eddie’s Diner looks like the frickin’ Waldorf-Astoria to me.

The food is almost always good (of course, I’m a gravy fan… you vegetarians would be pretty much SOL), and the people are pleasant and helpful - always willing to lend an ear (as long as you ain’t Mexican- or AyRab-lookin’). When I look to confirm my MapQuest directions, every hash-slinger, coffee-freshener, and biscuit-scarfer in the place is willing and eager to oblige.

Now, Small Town America tends to harbor distrust of the out-of-towner, fearing the violent hair-trigger temper made famous by the national news and teledramas such as The Sopranos. This fear is justified. The out-of-towner’s violent outbursts, however, are equally justified if not more so. A guy can only take driving directions from Jethro’s Airport to East Shitstainia, Nebarkantucky ultimately boiling down to the phrase “you know where the Stuckey’s used to be?” so many times in a row before snapping.

I’m not from here. I have never been here before. I have no prior knowledge of this Stuckey’s of legend. Nor do I know where them Harris Boys burned the barn down in ’67, the corner where Ol’ Man Haggard wrecked his truck a couple years ago, or the cornfield where all the kids go to make out are located. I only know these roads vicariously by their names as listed in their respective State Departments of Transportation databases as pulled by MapQuest. Please please please just inform me if the road next to which my car is parked is the same as the road in the big blue capital letters to the left of the Benningan’s ad on the page I’m waving in front of your too-damned-close-together eyes. As hard as it may be to imagine, I am not in this hamlet to revel in its cultural and historic splendor - I have somewhere I need to be and a specific time at which I need to be there.

I hate being rude to these happy yippy puppy people, but after a while the cold facts that (a) I’m on the clock and (b) I’ll never see them again force the drunken businessman in my head to shout “Fuck these hayseeds!” and just walk away by any means necessary. If any of the crew who were at Eddie’s Diner last Tuesday around 2:30 pm your time happen to read this entry, I truly thank you for your efforts, but our experience, knowledge and culture gaps were simply too great to bridge in the forty minutes we shared together. I deeply regret calling Little Lizzie a backwater balloon-tittied uncle-fucking hicktard.

I don’t regret not flushing, though. Your gravy is too damned salty.