What I didn't expect delighted and moved me. Along the windows, homemade snowflakes had been taped ("Made by the third shift ladies," our waitress explained; "they could have used store-bought ones, but they didn't!"). At the counter, an older man, alone, played a game on his telephone, another waitress and the fry-cook chatting with and asking him questions -- a regular customer clearly, a widower perhaps, enjoying the generous attention from folks whom he knows.
When I still taught prep school, I began the first tenth-grade class of the year with "Molly and Ned," a game designed to test students' lack of awareness of their preconceptions about language. "What do you think this phrase" -- I'd point to "functional fixedness" already written on the board -- "means." Eventually, students would untangle the phrase into something like a fixed way of thinking about something. "Yes, a way of thinking that sticks you in a rut when you encounter something you don't expect. We're going to play Molly and Ned to uncover your functional fixedness. Your job," I'd say, "is to discover the rules of the game by asking me questions to which I can answer yes or no. Begin." After much frustration and experimentation, students who followed their instincts and who thought creatively -- often those their classmates had written off as "slow" or worse -- would catch on. I'll leave it to you to imagine why the game is called "Molly and Ned."
Tonight, I banged up against my own functional fixedness. I have long thought of The Waffle House as a restaurant of the lowest order -- a place of last resort. But I have been blind to the humanity of the people who work there, and tonight I am grateful to them for their little kindnesses.
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