creeping realization

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Whenever I'm in an interview and I'm asked what my preferred working environment is, I always lie. Hiring managers seldom want to hear In a dark bar with deep booths and an exceedingly generous definition of a "shot."

Venues are limited in Metamuville, which is to say, there are none. Some 25 minutes away is the only decent restaurant within a 45 minute drive. It's a tiny, "Best Places to Kiss" type restaurant, lousy with doilies and candles. It's also exceptional in that it grows its own produce and shapes its ever-changing menu around whatever is available. Last week, my lunch was flank steak in a cherry-port reduction sauce. The week before, rack of lamb. The week before, crab louis.

I've become a regular, visiting a few times per month. As such, I've gotten to know the staff who've kindly brought me an endless supply of food and drink. It's a part of my routine to which I've really come to look forward.

My favorite server, Olive, sometimes eats her own lunch at my table. She shares restaurant recipes, which I enjoy, and speaks and thinks in complete sentences, which I enjoy enormously. Inevitably, she recently quit. I've found myself making lunch plans with her, plans where I'll meet her at the restaurant and all will be right with my universe again. It was this last thought that gave me pause.

Remember the creepy Jack Nicholson character in "As Good As It Gets?" Remember how he was a reclusive loner writer type? Remember how when the waitress called in sick, he showed up at her house to implore her to go back to work?

Remember how much you hated that character?