Day: Thursday. Time: 6:07am. Place: NW Glisan St.
“Slider?” My reply: a blank, sleepy stare. Come on Zanny, you’ve been to Blanchet plenty of times, you should know this. Think, think. The little workers in my brain scramble about frantically, opening and slamming metaphoric file cabinets, leafing through folders for the one labeled “slider.”“Uhh…what?” I replied, pulling my face into my “help me” frown.
“You’re our slider for this morning” Rick informed me, pointing a thick finger towards hooks of black aprons.
Bundled in coats to ward off that familiar ripped-from-bed-early-in-the-morn cold, I waddled over to grab an apron, awkwardly lunging to keep out of the dishwashers’ steamy domain.
“Places! Five minutes,” Rick shouted to all of us, and all individuals slid purposefully to their post. Just before grabbing a fistful of forks and propped open the door, Rick looked straight at me, held up two hands, and began to slowly wiggle all ten fingers. Again? Oh no. What could this possibly mean? Ten seconds till he opens the door? A special method of welcoming volunteers? Is he…commenting on my phalanges?
“Gloves,” he mouthed slowly to me, exaggerating each shape of his mouth, as if speaking to someone who was hearing impaired. Nice one. 0 for 2. Off to a good start, champ.
After my two drowsy miscommunications with Rick, I clicked right into place. I felt like a tiny gear in the huge chugging machine that is Blanchet House. It pretty much went like this from 6:30am until the end of breakfast: I’m handed a sectioned plate with two steaming pancakes on it, I grab a piece of bread and a banana, put them on the plate, then slide the plate down on a huge metal counter so that the servers can deliver them to the tables as new eaters shuffle in. All this…to the blaring sound of metal music like Evanescence streaming out of an orange boom box. The jarring music threw off the strikingly warm and friendly atmosphere inside the room despite the early hour and morning drizzle spitting down on the concrete outside. But I got it down to a rhythm: grab, bread, banana, slide.
I quickly became acquainted with the guy handing me the pancake plates, although I never learned his name. He was watching as I picked up one banana to discover a very dubious substance stuck to the peel. I squinted my eyes, flipped the banana over, and placed it on the plate. I didn’t know he saw, but he started laughing heartily at my reaction and sneaky solution to the mystery powder. From then on he openly made jokes to me, mostly at the expense of his co-workers (he was permanent staff there). Then I was a target too.
“Hey, what happened to that slide?” he teased. He was right, I had totally let myself go. He then explained the principal of Slide Integrity, or sliding even when you don’t have to, one of the core ideals of Blanchet House. “Accuracy, consistency, integrity,” he outlined.
Another man who had small mutton chops and broad shoulders, the self-proclaimed “jokester” there, playfully pulled the box of bananas I was leaning on and when I turned, feigned oblivion.
I spoke to a few of the people who had come in for the meal—an elderly man asked me for another cup so he could drink coffee and water simultaneously, a younger guy sardonically explained his daily struggle to get a job at either Fred Meyer and the Dollar Tree (“let’s see if I’m good enough for ‘em today, wish me luck”), and a man with a Walt Whitman-esque beard boasted the sound quality of his walkman and lamented the Eagles cancellation of their 1995 tour. Others—a man in a button-up and sports jacket carrying a cell phone, and a woman in her twenties wearing a floral skirt and jeans jacket, made me acutely aware of my innate tendency to forge assumptions based on others’ appearance. You really never know someone’s situation.
The jokester chef started ladling oatmeal, and offering seconds (without getting in line again) as things wound down. I watched an older man's tired eyes light up when he was brought a second plate, heaped with steaming oatmeal. When Rick called “we’re now closed, but we hope to see you back at 11:30 for lunch” I couldn’t decide who had been more gracious towards me, the smiley work force at Blanchet house, or the people coming in for their first meal of the day.
I don’t mean to spit hackneyed expressions, or sound too cliché, but my morning yesterday helping serve b-fast at Blanchet was a major wake-up call (literally and figuratively). I’m enjoying researching diners, but it’s easy to forget that the demographic that eats at diners is a limited one that excludes multitudes. Those are the people who can afford to spend both time and money to go out and purchase their first meal of the day.
It’s too easy to forget that many don’t wake up in the morning and decide what or where to eat for breakfast, but rather must figure out how to eat anything at all.
fun fact!
I recently received a Facebook message from Dave Gunderson, the Capital Campaign Chair of the Blanchet House, who found and posted my story on the Blanchet House Facebook Fan Page.
Check it out HERE.
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