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 emessinger@manhattanmedia.com.
