From the Bench
EDNA MAE AND THE LADY BUG
When Edna Mae headed for my table with a fly swatter, I had no idea what she had in mind.
"What’s with the fly swatter?," I asked.
"They’s a bug crawlin’ on the winder sill, and I aim to kill it."
I was sitting by the window. I looked, and, sure enough, up near a crack behind the curtain, a ladybug had found its way in out of the cold.
"Don’t kill it. That’s a ladybug. They’re not nasty, and they eat aphids."
Edna Mae, who didn’t know an aphid from an artichoke, was unconvinced. "I don’t care whut it is or whut it eats, it ain’t got no business in a resturnt." She drew back the curtain and took aim with the fly swatter.
I lifted my arm to defend the ladybug, at the same time hinting darkly that any harm to the bug might get in the way of my usual fifty-cent tip.
It worked. Edna Mae might not have understood aphids, but money was a different matter, since she had so little of it. She retreated with her weapon of destruction, mumbling under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear, something to the effect that little spotted bugs had no business in a restaurant.
I suspect that after I left, Edna Mae dispatched the insect to ladybug heaven and endless aphids and springtime. She was a determined woman.
The restaurant where Edna Mae spent fifteen years of her life was a stereotype of small- town South. The kind of place you see in movies written in New York and made in California to show how provincial we are in this part of the country.
The name was unimaginative but accurate. "Ed’s". Ed was Edna Mae’s uncle, long since gone. But his widow, who did all the cooking anyway, with the help of a colored woman (I would say "African-American", but that would destroy the authenticity of the story), went right on after a two-day break for the funeral, and the only thing most folks remembered about Ed was the name of the restaurant.
Admittedly, "Ed’s" was provincial, but in a comfortable sort of way, like most things southern. Folks from other parts of the country don’t understand and can’t appreciate that, so they do these condescending things like write stories emphasizing our quaintness. (I would say queerness, but that word, like "gay", has long since been preempted for other uses.)
I thought about Edna Mae and Ed’s many times in later years when I went out to eat, especially when I travelled to the northern provinces on business…..places like New York, Chicago, and Boston.
A body needs to feel comfortable when he sits down to eat. For me, this means knowing the other folks around you, understanding the menu, and having no more than three pieces of silverware to deal with.
This was hard to find up north when I was traveling "on business." That means on an expense account, with other folks on an expense account, using other people’s money. You had to be "fashionable".
The places we ate had stars beside their names. We never went below two, and shot for more, since it was other people’s money.
That’s a far cry from when I travel on my own money. The first thing I do in a restaurant is to ask for a menu. I look down the right-hand side. Instead of stars, I look for digits. My favorite is a three-digit café. If it gets to four, the first digit better be below two. Otherwise, I walk.
(Ed’s was a no-star, three-digit café, and the first digit never got above five. Of course, that was a while back.)
Back in my travelling days, I dreaded going into a restaurant with stars. New York was the worst. The waiters knew right off that you were a "provincial", and you got the "provincial" treatment.
One memorable night was especially bad. It was a four-star place that my Yankee dining companion assured me was reeking in "ambiance." During the meal, I asked him facetiously if that was ambiance crawling across the floor. It wasn’t a ladybug.
He was not amused. He had about as much sense of humor as our waiter. I wanted to swat them both.
"Where are you, Edna Mae, when I need you?," I thought.
When we left, I was so disgusted that I didn’t even leave my usual fifty-cent tip.