Thursday at IHOP

So I get this call from Goldie inviting me to the International House of pancakes, our customary hangout. We love IHOP because it's bright and comfortable, and we can talk for hours without anyone hustling us out of there. Anyway, Goldie is upfront about her reasons for insisting I come that night. She has an equivocal relationship with her friend Roz who is also invited. Goldie, a writer herself, admires Roz for her intelligence and remarkable writing talent but feels her friend goes on too much about her grandchildren, a vice Goldie herself is not wholly free of. So, dreading the possibility of having to feign interest in the exploits of another woman's grandchildren, Goldie expects me to divert the conversation when needed, though where she ever obtained such an exaggerated sense of my powers, I'll never know.

"Anyway," she says, "Thursday is two for one chicken night, the best chicken you'll ever taste. And you get the second chicken free – so much chicken you can't believe it!"

"But I don't need two chickens, Goldie. I can't eat that much."

"So you'll take some home. Joe and I, we split one chicken. We still have some left over. We take the second chicken home to freeze for later."

I don't see much sense in ordering chickens at a pancake house, but I agree to go, knowing the evening will be friendly and entertaining. The problem is that when I'm ready to leave, I realize I can't recall whether I was to go to the Skokie or Rogers Park IHOP, and Goldie and her husband Joe will have already left. I call Rogers Park and explain to the young fellow on the line that I'm looking for an elderly couple, not too tall, who will undoubtedly have ordered the two for one chicken special. He pauses for a moment and then laughs saying, "Look Lady, how can I possibly help you? You've just described absolutely everyone in this joint."

Taking a chance on Roger's Park I drive over and congratulate myself on my lucky guess. I wave to Goldie as I enter the restaurant and immediately head for the bathroom after my long drive. It turns out I have to wait a while outside the single person bathroom, and I can hear water running, then stopping, then starting again. Perhaps some poor soul is experiencing a make-do version of a shower. I notice there are old magazines and newspapers stacked on a table outside the restroom, just as in a doctor's waiting room where you have to wait forever. Eventually I do get in, and when I return to my dining companions, Goldie attacks me with questions.

"Where were you? What were you doing? We wondered where you were. What took you so long?" Not giving me a chance to respond, she immediately introduces me to Roz and her husband Van, all the while apologizing for putting them at the end of the table. She is enjoying her role as hostess. I can see she has planned carefully for the evening as she and Joe arrived early, ordered the two for one chickens (which arrive long before the rest of us even look at the menu), and arranged where everyone will sit. When their food arrives, Joe tells me I must sample some. Twice I refuse, but he insists and I try a little potato, very salty. "Now isn't that the best potato you ever tasted?" he asks, beaming. "Look at all this food -- how will we ever eat so much?"

Then Sue Woldenburg arrives. Joe, delighted with a new audience, begins plying her with chicken. "But I've already eaten," she protests.

"It doesn't matter," he says. "You have to try this chicken." Like me, she refuses a couple of times and finally surrenders. "Now isn't that the best chicken you ever tasted?" Sue gives a noncommittal shrug. "Why don't you order some?"

"I just told you, I've already eaten," she repeats, firmly.

"Wellllll, you can't just sit there and not order anything. You can't just watch us eat." He's becoming shrill.

"Leave her alone, Joe," says Goldie. She doesn't have to order anything if she doesn't want to."

"But this chicken is so good," Joe continues, a little deflated, as if he himself were being rejected instead of a two for one chicken dinner by a woman who has already eaten.

As Goldie's coffee arrives, she squirrels away the three little creams which come with it. "For my daughter," she says in explanation. "I take my coffee black, but not Toby. She takes hers with cream. I read an article," she continues, "which said that even if you don't use the soaps or shampoos in a hotel, you should leave them there for the next person. That's what I read," she concludes, as if she were wrapping up an etiquette lesson for our benefit.

Joe laughs as he says without apology, "Why we've lived off hotel soaps for the past twelve years!" and I join him in laughter. But it occurs to me that Goldie and Joe rarely stay in hotels. "Soooooo you bathe once a year whether you need to or not?" I ask with as serious an expression as I can muster.

He doesn't mind my teasing. "As a matter of fact, we haven't had a bath in ten years."

My eyebrows shoot up.

"We haven't had a bath, because once we put in a shower, we gave up baths for good." We laugh appreciatively.

Not to be outdone, Goldie turns to me to say she's bought me a wonderful card for my birthday five months hence, but that she's going to give it to me now, "while we're still friends." She looks mysterious, sinister even, as she says this, narrowing her eyes as if she has some shady business afoot.

"But what will end our friendship?" I ask, playing along as she continues to stare at me intently. Goldie ends our friendship every other week and never tells me why. "I know -- I'll order Swedish pancakes instead of two for one chicken and, Goldie, you'll never speak to me again, right?"

At this Goldie giggles but Joe moans, "You wouldn't."

"Oh yes I will," and when the waitress comes, I do exactly that. I get the International passport breakfast with Swedish pancakes, sausage, bacon, and eggs over medium, not as much food as Joe and Goldie have, but pretty much all the same.

"Eggs over medium?" Roz echoes. "Eggs over medium? I've never heard of such a thing. I've heard of easy over and sunny side up but never eggs over medium."

Much to Joe's delight, Roz and Van order the chicken. He turns to me and shakes his head. I expect a reprimand and I'm not disappointed as he frowns, "You'll be sorry with those pancakes. You'll see. I know you can't eat two chickens, but you could have taken them home, so much food you could have gotten another meal out of them, maybe two. And such good potatoes."

"But I thought you could only order pancakes here," says Roz. "How long have they been doing this?"

"How long? How long? Since forever. Everybody knows that," and Goldie crosses her arms in a huff, unable to believe she could be having dinner with such ignoramuses.

I can't resist. And in my best storytelling voice I say, "Ah, but it has been going on since the beginning of time, well, since the beginning of restaurants anyhow. Why when I was knee high to a grasshopper, folks would line up out the store and around the block on two for one chicken night. Now, alas, folks don't appreciate the good things in life any more; there are only 3 or 4 tables full and even at this table, there is a traitor eating Swedish pancakes." Goldie and Sue laugh, but Joe glares at me, resenting my irreverence.

My breakfast arrives, but I can't eat it in peace. I spear my eggs over medium to let the yolks run, and Joe cries out, clutches his chest and puts his head on the table as if I'd stabbed him. He comes to, very quickly, and says, "Those yolks look like eyes -- as if you're piercing someone in the eye and all the gooey stuff is running out." Goldie says the lingonberries on my pancakes are even worse, that they look like congealed blood. Losing my appetite, I decide I need a break and start heading toward the bathroom.

"Are you leaving us? Are you going home? Where are you going?" Joe asks, sounding seriously distressed. I explain I'm going to the bathroom but he doesn't hear and repeats his question, this time more audibly.

I turn back and respond, as loudly as I'm capable of, "I am going to the bathroom, ok? I have finished my meal and I am now going to the bathroom and certainly you must hear me because the whole restaurant can."

"But...you went when you got here, didn't you?" Joe responds. "And you were in there a long time, too. What's wrong with you?"

He's clearly not gauging my mood and doesn't seem to be picking up on any other social cues either. Goldie pokes him with her elbow and yells, "Joe, stop it! Can't you see you're embarrassing her?"

I am grateful to Goldie, for she's right, he's definitely embarrassing me.

Returning from the bathroom I hope my companions have moved on to dessert, but I've overestimated them. I doubt they've swallowed one morsel since I left. I am profoundly surprised as Joe stares fixedly down at his plate and apologizes. No doubt Goldie put him up to it. I swear I don't know how my poor friend ever accomplishes anything when she's always so busy cleaning up her husband's messes.

Joe confirms my suspicions as he says, "Goldie's been giving me a hard time ever since you left. I never should have embarrassed you like that. Will you forgive me?" At this he looks up into my eyes, soulfully.

"Of course I forgive you," I say, relieved and pleased, not only with him but with myself for finally, finally getting through.

"Soooooooooo..." he continues, "did you go number one or number two?" He is entirely poker faced. But he can't sustain it. One look at my face, and he laughs so hard, he has to clutch the table for support.

Goldie pipes up, "What happened? What did she say? What did you say?" He repeats the whole story to her and she, my ally against the "embarrassing one," laughs almost as hard as he did. Roz, less familiar with Joe's antics than the rest of us, delights him by asking several questions as he retells the story of how he got me.

Figuring I've provided my friends with enough entertainment for one night, I think about leaving, and I can picture how the night will end.

Goldie and Joe will ask for separate boxes each to carry chicken, salad, and dessert, so Joe will have six boxes of food to carry out to the car. Like hunters of old, he will haul enough food home for a glorious feast. If he spares me a thought, he'll shake his head over my improvidence, returning home without any spoils to show for a long evening.

Roz has been a good listener and has gone on about her grandchildren not at all. Goldie, on the other hand, regales us with stories of the cases her lawyer daughter won and the publications of her professor daughter, not to mention the budding careers of her architect and attorney granddaughters. She also describes her granddaughters' experiences in India, living with and helping the poor, and I love hearing her stories.

Joe tells us he's just given up snow shoveling and that, a few months short of ninety, he doesn't feel as strong as he used to. I remind him of Ed Poulson, nicknamed "goy boy" by Goldie, who suggested that Joe was well on his way to living forever.

"It's true," says Joe, looking towards Goldie for confirmation. "I always believed I would live forever. It never occurred to me I would die, and when I build, I build to last." And he goes on to describe a building project in his own backyard. Joe has a home in Evanston filled with furniture he built himself.

"And why not?" I ask with only the purest admiration in my voice. "Why not live forever, Joe?"

Goldie, who is finally winding down says, "Let's go home, Joe. It's late. Really, let's go home."

But we continue to talk under the bright lights of IHOP. It's warm, comfortable -- the ideal location for sharing our life stories. The waitress gave up refilling our coffee pot an hour ago, though for the first two hours she was a real trooper. The busboy must think we're homeless for we clearly have no place to go. He frowns, though he dares not approach our table to clean it before we actually leave. He must wonder if that's ever going to happen.

But we're not going anywhere. Why should we? The night is young, and Joe is just getting started.