Tag Archives: diner

‘Dose ahr not liess’: The week in quotes

iHotel, Champaign, Ill., 14 April 2015

iHotel, Champaign, Ill., 14 April 2015

“You are [from] Illinois, right? Why would you consider anywhere else?” said a University of Illinois dean, not facetiously, at a WYSE state competition. Also, she said in her German-accented English, that we may have heard UI is one of the best engineering schools in the nation. “Dose ahr not liess,” she said, terrifyingly.

An honors student said she was once sent out of class for being rude to her teacher. “Of course I get in trouble for complaining that my class isn’t hard enough,” she said. Another honors student commented, “that’s a nerd in-school suspension.”

Earlier, she had said, “Yak, yak, yak: nerds like to yak,” before the introductions to a state-level engineering competition.

“I haven’t shaved since I was born,” said a girl in my English class, apropos of very little.

A girl who is a high school junior said she’s too busy to be “a ho.” “I’m not a ho. If I had time, I still wouldn’t be a ho,” she explained.

My wife said of our cat: “Why so bitchy-witchy, kitty?”

At the diner, Sunday morning: A 50-ish man paying his bill said to a 20-ish waitress: “Did you go to Stillman [high school]? You were a cheerleader.”

“Getting job applications with Michael,” snipped a girl wearing black shorts and a white Illinois State-logo sweatshirt into a cellphone at a local grocery store, about 4:20 p.m. Wednesday.

iHotel, Champaign, Ill., 14 April 2015. The pretension of naming an "Excellence Room."

iHotel, Champaign, Ill., 14 April 2015. The pretension of naming an “Excellence Room.”

After a sophomore asked if we could have fun in my English class Friday, I declined his offer, and he answered, “You hate fun.” “I get paid to hate fun,” I confirmed.

After a student said on Facebook that she couldn’t tell the difference between “affect” and “effect.” I responded that there is no difference between “affect” and “effect”; that’s just something we English teachers tell students in order to keep them busy with worksheets.

Kim Waitress, at the diner, Saturday, 18 April 2015

Kim Waitress, at the diner, Saturday, 18 April 2015

At the diner: ‘Who needs a spanking?’

Sunday morning, Sunrise diner. A local Realtor(tm) walks up to a table of younger adults and children and says, “Who needs a spanking?” To one girl of about seven years, he says, “I KNOW you do.” He leaves, and a couple minutes later, a white woman comes to the same table and says, “Is everybody behaving over here? Or did my husband already get that taken care of?”

Also this morning: the classic Old Farmer conversation at the diner about The Price Of Corn. I had to pinch myself: two adult white men unironically using phrases like “three – dollar corn” and “some politics in there too.”

Grandpa’s flirting again

20140719_095314

Today at the diner, an old man with a cane stopped at the counter where a couple of waitresses were rolling silverware into napkins and he sang, Jerry Lewis-style, “two bizzy laydees.”

Bikers used to be cool

Also this morning, I saw a couple on a motorcycle in our small downtown. If they were to refer to each other as “my old lady” and “my old man,” they wouldn’t be exaggerating.

Summer quotes from food places

Weds. 18 June

“Ev’ry time I lay down to read the paper, I can’t read the paper. My eyes start watering,” said an older male voice at Dos Amigos restaurant, Byron, about 6:15 tonight.

Thurs. 19 June

Also at the diner today, our waitress friend complained about religious songs on the radio. “‘Raise your hands, praise the Lord’ — oh, God, there’s no such thing,” she atheized.

A little girl at our diner turns around in her seat and tells us that she’s only 10 months shy of being 6. “And you know what I want? LOTS of make-up,” she says. Also, “I can EVEN use knives! ” Meanwhile, my wife tells her own story: “I think I wrote a sentence the other day.”

Tues. 29 July

“Wait, you’re planning to get trashed, aren’t you?” asked a 20 – something woman at Starbucks on East State, Rockford, IL, at about 11:40 a.m., of whomever she was talking to on her phone.

Thurs. 31 July

A woman has “4 pounds of crap to do on a 2-pound plate,” said a 50-ish woman to another yesterday, at Beef-A-Roo on Riverside, Loves Park, IL, at about 1:30 p.m.

Sat. 9 August

Overheard at the diner this morning: “To be perfectly honest with you …,” said a 20-some guy who was about to be rude to his girlfriend.

Fri. 15 August

Friday night grocery lights:

"Babes dig milk," he says.

“Babes dig milk,” he says.

Sat. 16 August:

At the diner, Saturday morning. 
My wife: “I know that little girl. ”
Me: “The one who just walked by here?”
My wife: “Yeah. I tricked her into thinking I was psychic, once.”

Also at the diner, I heard Jessica Waitress say: “That was like a cross between a horse and a witch … and maybe a little goat thrown in there, too.”
The waitress later told us she was describing the laugh of Kim Waitress. Jessica further explained that Kim sometimes surprises her by purring in her ear, and then Kim demanded, “Purr in MY ear. I want to know what it’s like. “