As far as I remember, my dinner conversation with my 10-year-old son at our local diner on Friday night was unremarkable. A pit-stop on the way to his public school, where we planned to work on the props for the school auction, the only thing about the meal that I thought was novel was that Adam agreed to share an entrée (chicken quesadillas), and that was only because of the prospect of the pizza that awaited him at the school. I remember feeling a bit burdened by having to insist one too many times about him not using his cell phone at dinner, but never to the point of over-heating. The conversation jumped around between football Hall Of Famers, the auction at his school, and some playground drama.
As I said, to me, it all seemed quite unremarkable; but not to the diner’s cashier.
We’re regulars at this diner. We usually eat there at least once a week. We know the owners, the waiters and waitresses, and the cashiers. I’d seen this particular cashier only a few times before. She’s likely in her 50s, petite, and has a Greek accent and a simple, unadorned in style—as if the owner had recruited his trusted “Old World” aunt to mind the money.
I walked over to pay our bill and she stunned me.
“I have to tell you something,” she said, with a seriousness that brought me to attention. “You’re very good with your son. I watch you. You talk the whole meal. You put the cell phones away. That’s really good. It’s very good.”
I know it might seem like bad form to write a column in support of myself, but I don’t think of our exchange as validation of me and my parenting as much as a moment of kindness—an unexpected, but most appreciated, compliment.
It would have been easy to respond with a bit of pleasantly glib sarcasm on the order of: “Yeah, let’s see if it helps,” or: “I’m glad someone appreciates it.”
But she reached out; I appreciated her; and responded in kind.
“Thank you,” I said, thinking about how much of my conversation with Adam was about the phone itself. “It’s not easy,” I added, allowing myself to unburden.
“But it’s good,” she said again. “I watch you two. It’s good.”
Eric Messinger is the editor of New York Family. He can be reached at [email protected].
