From the moment I awoke this morning, my stomach was sending me hints. The hints eventually turned to demands… eggs would be necessary this morning. And knowing better than to disappoint him (yes, my stomach is male), I set off for my favorite diner.

I hadn’t gone out for a proper breakfast in some time. This is mostly due to my single-ness I suppose… I had even intended to bring a book to read to kill the time between sitting and paying. It turned out to be dumb luck that I forgot to bring one.

Being single does have some advantages. With a line out the door of people waiting for a table, I casually walked right past them and took a seat at the counter. I sat next to my single brethren and sister-en whom where all busy eating or watching the TV mounted to the wall behind the counter or reading the book they had remembered to bring. While my waitress failed to notice she had one less vacant chair, I was eyeing the multitude of plates being pushed from the kitchen–each seemingly heaped with more egg-tastic goodness than the last. My stomach insisted on three changes of mind before I actually ordered… as it turned out, today I would discover Eggs Florentine.

Oddly, for thirty plus years, Eggs Florentine had been known to me by name alone. I had no idea they were just Eggs Benedict with some spinach stuck in there. Something new everyday… Well, with my order placed, book-less and not interested in TV without audio (though it was Wolf Blitzer… and the lack of audio seemed an improvement really), I began one of my favorite pastimes… people watching.

The counter in a diner on a Sunday morning is something to see. It’s like a feeding frenzy back there! I sat and watched the waitstaff become a blur of Hawaiian shirts and black pants as they taxied the stacks of plates off to their next destination. The cooks, in classic, crisp, white chef-coats, provided a constant beat of clanking, pounding, hissing and whisking noises. Quick and precise movements obtained through excessive repetition–elbows and shoulders bumping to prevent full-on collision–chatter, seemingly (and in some cases actually) in a foreign language, leaving only tone and volume as hints to their meaning. As I took it all in it occurred to me how similar to a stage this counter was–the waitstaff and cooks so much like actors and musicians–together, performing a highly choreographed play. And myself, just another member of the paying audience.

Then suddenly my meal appeared. It actually startled me. I realized then how much I had been enjoying the “show”.

Oh, and Eggs Florentine… yummy.