Adam and Eve on a Raft: A Waitress's Dictionary

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ADAM AND EVE
ON A RAFT
A Waitress's Dictionary
by Arlene Long · 41 years of pouring coffee · graveyard shift, Amarillo, Texas

Evening, hon. Or morning. If you're reading this at the hour I usually am, it's hard to say.

I'm Arlene. I'm sixty years old and I've been waiting tables since 1958, when I was nineteen and the lunch counter at the drugstore paid fifty cents an hour plus whatever the farmers left under the saucer. Since 1985 I've worked the graveyard shift, eleven at night to seven in the morning, at a 24-hour place off Interstate 40 on the east side of Amarillo. I won't name it, because if I do, Earl, who owns it, will want to read this first, and Earl reads slow.

Here's why I made this page. This spring we hired a sweet girl named Leah for nights, and her first week I hollered "Adam and Eve on a raft, wreck 'em" back to Wayne, our cook, and Leah looked at me like I'd lost my mind. Wayne laughed so hard he dropped the spatula. Then I got to thinking. Wayne's sixty-two. I'm sixty. When we're gone, who's going to know what a bowl of red is, or why you pin a rose on a burger?

So my grandson set me up on his computer, and here it is: the old counter talk, A to Z, what it means and whether anybody still says it. I've only put in the ones I've heard with my own ears from an actual cook. There are books full of diner talk, and some of it I believe and some of it I think a writer made up on a slow afternoon. If I didn't hear it at a counter, it isn't here.

ON THE MENU: The Dictionary · My Regulars · Rules for Customers · Night Stories · Things I've Been Asked to Put in a To-Go Box

THE DICTIONARY
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A	Adam and Eve on a raft Two poached eggs on toast. Adam and Eve are the eggs, the raft is the toast. Say "wreck 'em" and they're scrambled instead. STILL SAID? Me and Wayne, about once a week, to see if the new girl's listening. Adam's ale A glass of water. Also called city juice. STILL SAID? Gone. People just say water now, and they say it like it's a fancy thing to order.
B	Blue plate special The day's special, meat and two sides on one plate, one price. STILL SAID? Every night. Ours is chicken-fried steak on Tuesdays and the whole Panhandle knows it. Bowl of red A bowl of chili. In Texas, no beans, and don't ask. STILL SAID? Every night. This is Texas. Burn one Put a hamburger on the grill. "Burn one, take it through the garden and pin a rose on it" is a burger with lettuce, tomato and onion. STILL SAID? Wayne still answers to it. Nobody else says the whole thing anymore but me. Burn the British A toasted English muffin. STILL SAID? Rare. Nobody orders English muffins at 3 a.m. in Amarillo.
C	Cackleberries Eggs. So is hen fruit. STILL SAID? Only to make a trucker laugh. Cow juice Milk. Also moo juice. STILL SAID? The kids think it's funny. It is.
D	Draw one A cup of coffee. "Draw one in the dark" is black coffee. STILL SAID? Every night, a hundred times. Drag it through the garden With lettuce and tomato on it, the works from the garden. STILL SAID? Wayne knows it. Leah thought it meant a salad.
E	Eighty-six We're out of it. Also means a customer's been cut off, but I've only had to say it that way twice in forty-one years. STILL SAID? Every night. Restaurant people everywhere still say this one. It'll outlive me. Eve with a lid on Apple pie. The lid's the top crust. STILL SAID? Me and Wayne. It's how I ask him to save me a slice.
F	Fry two, let the sun shine Two fried eggs with the yolks whole, not broken. STILL SAID? Gone, mostly. People just say sunny side up.
G	Graveyard The overnight shift. Mine, eleven at night to seven in the morning, since 1985. STILL SAID? Every night, by me, with pride.
H	Hen fruit Eggs. STILL SAID? See cackleberries. Same answer. Hockey puck A hamburger cooked well done, all the way through. STILL SAID? Every night. Some people like them that way and I don't argue. Hold the hail No ice. A "bucket of hail" is a glass of ice. STILL SAID? Still said at our counter. Iced tea in August is half the menu. Hounds on an island Franks and beans. STILL SAID? Gone. We took it off the menu in 1990.
I	In the alley On the side. "Gravy in the alley" means in a bowl next to it, not on top. STILL SAID? Still said. Lots of folks want their gravy in the alley. In the weeds Behind, swamped, more orders than hands. STILL SAID? Every Friday at 2 a.m. when the dances let out.
J	Java, joe Coffee. STILL SAID? Every night. Nobody's given up on coffee yet.
K	Nothing I'd swear to. Somebody once told me one but it wasn't fit to print.
L	Nothing I'd swear to. Lots of people have told me one. I've never heard a cook use it.
M	Mike and Ike The salt and pepper shakers. Also called the twins. STILL SAID? Me. "Fill up Mike and Ike before you go" is the last thing I tell every new girl. Mud Coffee, especially the end of the pot. STILL SAID? Every night, said about the end of the pot.
N	Nervous pudding Jell-O. Because it shakes. STILL SAID? Rare. We only have Jell-O on Sundays. Noah's boy Ham. Noah's sons were Shem, Ham and Japheth. Look it up. STILL SAID? Me and the Preacher. See Regulars.
O	On the hoof Meat cooked rare. STILL SAID? Rare. (Ha.) On wheels To go. So is "let it walk." STILL SAID? Still said. Truckers want it on wheels. Over easy Eggs fried and flipped, with the yolk still runny. STILL SAID? A hundred times a night. This one made it.
P	Pin a rose on it Add onion. STILL SAID? Me. See burn one. Put out the lights and cry Liver and onions. STILL SAID? Me and three regulars over seventy. The liver's still on the menu as long as they are.
Q	Nothing I'd swear to. Folks order quesadillas, but that's just what they're called.
R	Raft Toast. STILL SAID? See Adam and Eve. They always need a raft.
S	Shingle A piece of toast. STILL SAID? Wayne. He was a Navy cook. Short stack A small order of pancakes, two or three instead of a full stack. STILL SAID? A hundred times a night. Everybody says this one. Sinkers and suds Doughnuts and coffee. STILL SAID? Me, to the Twins. See Regulars. Squeeze one A glass of orange juice. STILL SAID? Gone. We pour it out of a carton now and I'm not going to pretend. Sunny side up Eggs fried on one side, not flipped, yolk on top looking at you. STILL SAID? A hundred times a night.
T	Two cows, make 'em cry Two hamburgers with onions. STILL SAID? Me and Wayne, when it's slow and we're feeling young.
U	Up Eggs sunny side up. "Two up" is two of them. STILL SAID? Every night. Short and sweet, like me.
V	Not a one.
W	Whiskey down Rye toast. Nothing to do with whiskey. STILL SAID? Me. A Baptist deacon once almost walked out over it. Wreck 'em Scramble the eggs. STILL SAID? Every night. Wayne likes this one because he gets to wreck something.
X	X marks the spot where the coffee was.
Y	Nothing. Yes, I looked.
Z	Nothing I'd swear to, and Wayne says that's where I ought to be at 7 a.m.: Z's.

MY REGULARS
By the names I call them. They know who they are.

Sidewinder	Drives a flatbed, Oklahoma City to Phoenix and back every week, and he's at my counter going both ways like a clock. Chicken-fried steak, cream gravy in the alley, and two cups of coffee before he takes his hat off. Twelve years now. I know his kids' names and his dog's.
The Professor	Night clerk at a motel up the road. Comes in on his break at 2:15 with a paperback western in his pocket. One egg up on a raft, whiskey down, and he leaves the book on the counter when he's done so I can read it on my break. I've read about four hundred westerns this way.
Rooster	Wheat farmer from north of town. During harvest he's in at 4:30 sharp, short stack and sausage, and gone by five. I call him Rooster because he beats one up every morning.
The Twins	Two nurses off the night shift at the hospital. They are not twins. They are not even related. One's tall and one's short. They split a piece of pie and a pot of coffee every morning at 7:15 and I've told them sinkers and suds would be cheaper, but they like their pie.
Preacher	Long-haul driver with a Bible on his dashboard. Bowl of red with extra crackers, or Noah's boy on rye. He bows his head over his food every single time, at three in the morning, in front of the whole counter, and nobody has ever said a word. I like that about this place.
Trooper	Highway patrolman, works the interstate nights. Draw one in the dark, on wheels. He has never once sat down. Some night I'm going to make him.
Sweet Pea	A widow lady who can't sleep. She comes in around two a few nights a week for hot tea and dry toast. On slow nights I take my break in her booth. We've solved most of the world's problems. Nobody's asked us to, but we've got them ready.

RULES FOR CUSTOMERS
Posted by the register in my head

Don't snap your fingers at me. I'll get to you. I always get to you. In forty-one years I have never once forgotten a customer, and I have been snapped at by men who have.
Don't whistle either. I'm not a collie.
Everybody gets called hon. Truckers, preachers, the mayor, teenagers, the man from the health department. It isn't personal. It's just the house dressing.
If you order just coffee, you'll get just coffee. If you sit three hours over it, you'll get the coffee and some company.
Don't ask me what's fresh. It's three in the morning. It's all fresh to somebody.
Wayne doesn't take tips, but he takes compliments. Holler them back through the window. He pretends not to hear but he does.
If you're too tired to drive, don't. Sleep in your truck in our lot, nobody minds, and I'll have the coffee on when you wake up. I've lost two regulars to the road in forty-one years. That's two too many.
If you bring a baby in at three in the morning, I'm going to hold it so you can eat your supper with both hands. That isn't a rule. That's a promise.

NIGHT STORIES
The best ones, anyway. The rest I'm saving for my book, which I'll never write.

The Blizzard. One February a blizzard closed the interstate for two days and we had forty-some truckers sleeping in the booths and on the floor by the pie case. By the second morning we were out of eggs. Wayne took every potato in the walk-in, two gallons of chili and every tortilla in the house and made something up. It's been on the night menu ever since. The truckers call it the Blizzard and I can't get Earl to put it on the printed menu, so you have to know to ask.

The Band. About two in the morning a school bus broke down in our lot, and in walked a whole high school marching band and three tired chaperones, on their way home from a contest. Fifty-two kids. We made pancakes until we ran out of batter and then Wayne made more batter. When the replacement bus came at four-thirty they lined up in the parking lot in their uniforms and played their fight song for us, with the drums and everything, under the big sign. The Professor came over from the motel in his slippers to see what was going on. Best tip I ever got, and it wasn't money.

The Pay Phone. A young driver was sitting at my counter one night in 1991 when the pay phone on the wall rang. Nobody ever calls the pay phone. It was for him. His wife had just had a baby girl in Albuquerque, a month early, and his sister had tracked him down by calling every truck stop on his route. The whole place clapped. Wayne stacked up three pancakes, stuck a birthday candle in the top and sent it out. He still stops in. She's eight now. He shows me her school picture every fall.

The Christmas Man. Christmas Eve, 1994, a man in a feed store cap ate his eggs, paid his check, and on his way out quietly paid for everybody else's too, eleven people, and told me not to say who. I haven't. I never saw him again. Every Christmas Eve since, somebody at my counter does the same thing, and it's never the same somebody. I don't know how they know.

Friends of the counter: If you're a diner person, go see Small-Town Diner Reviews, where a retired couple rates diners across the Midwest on pie, coffee and whether the waitress calls you hon. They haven't made it down to Amarillo yet. When they do, I'll be ready. I'll call them both hon, and Wayne will pin a rose on it.

Next: Things I've Been Asked to Put in a To-Go Box

Customers served on this page:

since my grandson put it up in July 1998

Know an old counter word I left out? Heard it from a real cook?
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I read my mail on my break, around 3:30.

Last updated Friday, September 24, 1999