I’m not saying never, but it’ll be the next best thing.
I won’t be able to eat too many more times at my favorite local mom-and-pop restaurant before it closes. Maybe six more times before it shuts its doors for good on Friday night, 31 December. That’s once a month, starting in June. I’m skipping this month because I went all in on paying down some credit card debt with the stimulus checks and tax refund. We’ll have to wait until my wife’s next retirement check drops.
It’s just as well. It’s going on a year since Pop’s heart attack and it’s been harder and harder for him to run the kitchen, especially in light of last year’s fake pandemic panic our empowered and emboldened health departments refuse to let go. The quality of food and service has been a gamble. Some nights everything is perfect. Some nights the fries beside my bacon cheeseburger are cool and soggy and my pint comes with as much foam as it does beer. We can’t blame this hard-working couple for the issues wearing them down. On the other hand, it’s just as well we can’t get out as much on our fixed income. This place is not what it was when we first moved to this town nearly five years ago.
Of course, nothing is. I’m already three years past my first cancer diagnosis. Our two oldest family pets have crossed the Rainbow Bridge. A lot can happen in a month, let alone half a decade. One of the things I marveled over last year was how much things had more or less stayed the same until 2020, my Cancer Summer of 2018 notwithstanding. I still maintain that it was with the passing of our oldest cat Otis in March 2020 that reality began unraveling. So many things have changed. The country I grew up in has passed away into something else. My parents who died before the turn of the century wouldn’t recognize the place.
Back to the current passage, this family-owned restaurant had been a fixture of this town for nearly 40 years and once it closes, it’s the end of an era for a lot of people who had eaten here as children with their parents. For my part, it’s the end of an entire aspect of my life. Just as there was a time long past when I looked forward to TV shows and “events” and going to the movies, I already no longer care if I ever sit down in a restaurant to dine again. The excitement is no longer there.
It’s something of a relief. As sad as I’ll be for this passage—I’ve never taken change well—I’m no longer obligated to go out. There’s nowhere to go, and it suits me fine.
My wife and I are old and living on a fixed income. The owner/operators of my favorite place are old and tired, too. It was coming to this. With nowhere to go and no future to look forward to in Post-America, we will prepare our meals at home. We will ask God’s blessings, give thanks for still having food, and wait.
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