“Hi, I’m Roz,” the young woman chirps, flashing us a toothy smile and
scribbling the letters of her name R-O-Z in florid, Vivid Violet letters on the
right-hand corner of the paper tablecloth.
“And I’m Brad,” the young man echoes, grabbing a crayon from the stained paper cup
and scratching his name B-R-A-D in creaky, Mango Tango script on the opposite corner. “And we’re going to be your servers today,”
they tweedle at us in unison.
We’re sitting at a squat table in a knobby-timbered saloon
inside a cavernous, steel and glass airport just this side of the Rockies. It’s a Brokeback-Mountain-meets-Metropolis
kind of place and the tuneful twins fit in to a tee. A squirt gun seems suddenly appropriate: there's nothing quite like the combination of promiscuous architecture and corporatized adolescents to catapult the sensitive, normal-ager smack dab into the
center of Curmudgeonville.
The menu is predictable: a mishmash of salad greens and
meats slathered in leaden sauces. I
order a beer and a spinach salad and Ale orders a margarita and a hamburger. By the time the beer and margarita have
arrived, my inner artist has emerged, taken possession of a Blue Bell crayon,
and begun to scribble all manner of inanities and profanities on the paper
tablecloth (each of which is then rapidly scratched out with Outer Space black
and a giggle).
There’s something to this crayon-paper-restaurant thing, something
even adults inhabiting Curmudgeonvilles might readily appreciate. Firstly, your doodles perfectly camouflage splatters
of sauce and oil and drool, so your napkin can maintain an elegant elliptical
between lips and lap exclusively.
Secondly, you can multitask: while you sip your beer or nibble your
spinach salad, you can practice those calligraphic flourishes you keep meaning
to master but haven’t been able to because of scheduling constraints. Thirdly, you can reconnect to your
misunderstood teenage-self that graffiti-ed every surface it stumbled upon. And fourthly, your careful study of the subtle
differences between Lemon Yellow and Dandelion will not make you look unduly odd in such a setting.
The next time I have a dinner party, I think I might just
adopt this crayon-paper thing and insist that each of my guests introduce
themselves with a “Hi, my name is (blank)!” and a quick scribble on the paper
tablecloth. Won’t that be fun.
6:27:30 PM 
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