| 1 |
Half a cup of coffee. It's already in a cup, hon. A cup is a to-go box. Take the cup. Bring it back next week. |
| 2 |
The ice out of a glass of tea. In August, in Amarillo, I understood completely. Boxed it. |
| 3 |
Three french fries. Exactly three. He counted them in. |
| 4 |
The parsley. A lady said she was going to plant it. I don't think it works that way, but I boxed it, and I hope it did. |
| 5 |
Every jelly packet on the table. Grape, strawberry and the orange marmalade nobody eats. I let it go. Earl doesn't read this page. |
| 6 |
The placemat a little girl colored. Gladly. I rolled it up and put a rubber band on it so it wouldn't get gravy on it. |
| 7 |
Just gravy. A bowl of cream gravy, no biscuit, no steak, no nothing. He said he had biscuits at home. I believed him. |
| 8 |
The rest of his wife's pie. While she was in the ladies' room. I said I'd box it as soon as she came back and said so. She came back and said no. Good for her. |
| 9 |
The ketchup bottle. The whole bottle. No, hon. |
| 10 |
The song on the jukebox. He'd just heard it for the first time and wanted to take it with him. I can't box a song. I wrote down the name of it on a napkin and boxed the napkin. |
| 11 |
One scrambled egg, for the dog. Sidewinder's blue heeler rides with him and waits in the cab. I've boxed that egg about six hundred times. Wayne makes it with no salt, because that dog has a better diet than any of us. |
| 12 |
A kitten. Some boys found a little gray kitten under a truck in the lot, wet and crying, and brought it to me. Animals can't come inside, health code, so I went out to it with a pie box with holes poked in the lid and a saucer of milk. A trucker hauling to Tulsa took the box and the kitten home to his girls. He sends me a picture every Christmas. She's a big fat cat now named Pie. |
| 13 |
Soup, when we were out of lids. I put it in a coffee mug with a saucer on top and told him to drive careful and bring back my mug. He did, two weeks later, washed. |
| 14 |
The birthday candle. From the pancakes. Already blown out. Of course, hon. |
| 15 |
The chili recipe. Wayne's. No. I don't even have it. I've been asking him for fourteen years. |
| 16 |
Wayne. A lady from a tour bus said she'd like to take the cook home. Wayne's been married thirty-eight years. He was flattered for a week. |
| 17 |
A slice of lemon. One slice. For her tea at home. She said ours were better. They come out of the same bag as everybody's. I didn't tell her. |
| 18 |
The toothpicks. A handful. Take them, hon. That's what they're there for. |
| 19 |
My pencil. A boy wanted the pencil from behind my ear, for luck on a test that morning. I gave it to him. He came back the next week and said he got a B. I'll take a B. |
| 20 |
Some of the quiet. One of the Twins, about six in the morning after a terrible night at the hospital, put her head down on the counter and said she wished she could take some of this quiet home in a box. I didn't have a box for that. I poured her another cup and didn't say a word for ten minutes, and that was the closest I could get. |
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