Forget Wendy. Meet Cadillac.

I’ve been on a major Waffle House kick lately. I don’t know what’s gotten into me, other than I cannot resist their chicken sandwiches and hash browns. A couple of posts ago, I introduced you to Wendy. If you haven’t read that yet, do some clickin’ and some readin’ and come on back. I haven’t seen Wendy since that fateful night, although I have revisited that specific Waffle House several times. In fact, it’s kind of a regular Friday night thing for me. I find myself sometimes on Friday nights stopping by the only bar in town that I give a crap about, having a few drinks, making a tipsy dial or two, and stopping by The Awful Waffle, as we call it down here. And that’s really the only time to go to one. You’re not going to get the full experience at 3:00 in the afternoon. Now, 3:00 in the morning, after you’ve had a few, that’s the time to go.

And that’s the time when you’ll meet the subject of this post — Cadillac. No, not the car. The star. Keep reading.

First of all, I was impressed with my parking skills as I pulled in the other night. Check it out.

Good one.

I walked in the other week hoping to revisit Wendy, but instead was met by a whole other brand of crazy. I sat at the counter and was greeted by a lady with a giant grin and a larger than life personality. She didn’t introduce herself, but I heard the other two people there refer to her as “Cadillac”. I’m not questioning anything. It’s Waffle House. This shit’s par for the course. I didn’t recognize her, but somehow we struck up a conversation. Or, I guess I should say she started up a conversation. Cadillac seemed like she’s never met a stranger and knew all the customers by name. I only wish I could have gotten the entire encounter on camera, but I did get some of it. We’ll get to that later.

At some point the conversation turned to her schedule. I asked her when she got off, and she said in a few hours. It was then that she realized it was Friday and that she was about to start her weekend. She celebrated by singing, “Fuuuuu-uck!” While “raising the roof”. Yes, as in lifting her hands in the air, and waving them like she just don’t care. I guess now would be a good time to mention to those of you not familiar with Waffle House, that the normal rules of decorum and language go out the window as soon as you walk in the door. This is the case for every one you go to. You’ll be greeted with the nicest, most polite, most attentive waitresses you’ve ever met in your life, but they will have the mouths of sailors on shore leave.

I figured while she was in good spirits, now would be a good time to ask her about Wendy. I’d love to get her take. I’ve only had one encounter with Wendy and I haven’t seen her in there since, so I was thinking maybe she quit. So, I asked Cadillac what she thought of her or if she ever worked with her. Her response:

“Oooooh! Oh, that bitch!? Oh, she’s a winner. She thought she was going to be the main bitch around here, but I had to set her straight. There’s only one main bitch around here, and it’s Cadillac. Let me tell you right now!” She then proceeded to go into a witch-like cackle that would chill you to the bone. I don’t know what the hell happened to Wendy, and I don’t think I want to.

Right about now, I was thinking, if I’m going to catch her on video, now’s the time. So, I convinced her to let me just turn my phone on, and talk a little bit. I was curious about the name “Cadillac”, and more specifically, what was going on with her name tag. I had noticed that it actually read, “UNKNOWN”. The result is below.

Of course, I had to get a pic of the actual name tag itself. Sorry about the flash over part of the words. As you can see, it actually does say, “UNKNOWN” and “I WEAR DEPENDS”.

Folks you can’t make this stuff up.

But, the story doesn’t end there. Let us fast forward to last night. I was driving in from Columbia after doing my radio show. The show ran about an hour long, and I was pretty worn out. About half way into my trip, I decided I wanted to stop for some hot chocolate. I saw a Waffle House sign, and figured that would be the place to go. They usually have pecan pie, and I had a craving for that too, so that clinched it. Something you need to know about the South, is that Waffle Houses are like churches and girls named “Britney”. There’s one every four feet.

So, I walked up, sat at my usual spot at the counter (all Waffle Houses are the same), and ordered a slice of pecan pie and a cup of coffee (they were out of hot chocolate — crap!). This time, I was just there for people watching. I wasn’t going to be hanging out very long because I was in the middle of a long trip, and in the car I was actually kind of wrapped up in an episode of Coast to Coast AM on AM radio. I am an enormous Coast to Coast AM fan and Michael E. Uslan was being interviewed. He is the executive producer for every single Batman related movie, not to mention the animated series. He’s also a noted comic book authority, writer, and author of The Boy Who Loved Batman. He’s pretty much responsible for every piece of Batman related media that you’ve seen in the last 20 years, and I really wanted to get back to the car so I wouldn’t miss anything. If you’re questioning why that was so important to me, you clearly don’t know me that well.

As I scarfed down my pecan pie, my waitress ran around refilling cups and things. I noticed the other waitresses referring to her as “Little Bit”. At one point, she leaned up against the counter in front of me, with her back turned to me and her ponytail in my eye line. I also noticed that she had some kind of tattoo on the back of her neck, but couldn’t make out what it was because her hoody was covering up most of it. So, I asked her. The conversation ran thusly:

“So, what’s your tattoo on your neck?”

“It’s my name. You wanna see it?” She turned back around and lowered the hoody. I noticed it was something written in Arabic. “It’s my name. It’s in Arabic.” She pronounced it “uh-RAY-bic”.

“What’s your name?”

“Heather.”

“Is that so you won’t forget it?”

“Well, I can’t see it.”

“Oh, I guess it’s so other people will know. I mean, if they speak Arabic.” I pronounced it Arabic.

“It’s supposed to be a conversation piece.”

“Well, looks like it’s working.”

“You want some more coffee or something?”

I should have asked to see her name tag.