Check Yer Guns at the Door, Pilgrim
Walter walked into the South End Diner last Friday morning carrying his Winchester 30-30 under his arm, a rifle meant primarily for hunting deer. He’s a card carrying NRA member and he takes his membership as seriously as a truck driving Teamster or an artist in the Camano Arts Association. Walter thinks the government wants to take his arsenal away from him and apparently, to protect his right to bear arms, he intends to bear them in the Diner.
Anita rolls her eyes from behind the cash register when he walks in with his unintentionally comic John Wayne swagger. “Whatcha got there, Pilgrim?” she asks. As owner of the café, she’s basically the sheriff, judge and jury in this one horse town. She makes the laws here and Walter, well … Walter’s not sure if the 2nd Amendment actually applies in the Diner with Anita at the City Limits, but by God, he intends to make a point and the Constitution should back him up and all the other Gun Toters in America and Anita, well, Anita can just shove it, he figures.
Like usual, Walter figures wrong. Anita holds a hand up like a traffic cop stopping cars. “We already killed the meat, Walter. Bacon, burgers, chicken, they’re dead. You want to be sure, order em well done. But … you aren’t hauling that gun in my restaurant, I don’t care if it’s loaded, empty or stuck up your keester, no way, no how. Comprende?”
Walter starts into quoting the Amendment but Anita’s out from behind the counter before he can hit the ‘right to’ and she’s got him by a twist of hair, turning him like a rusty screw toward the door and he’s yowling in pain so much she lets go. “Dammit, Walt, you give me indigestion, you really do. Give me the rifle and you can have it when you’ve finished your breakfast. But I can’t have the Wild West here with families and tourists. Take your protest to Stanwoodopolis, if you need to demonstrate. I got a business to run, probably into the ground, but I sure don’t need your help.”
In the end Walter’s politics took 2nd fiddle to eggs and bacon and his usual chicken fried steak. And Walter never brought his Winchester in the Diner again. But I don’t know about the Starbucks in town. Altho …there’s probably some enterprising entrepreneur who’s opened up a Barista Balllistic just to cater to the Walters of the world.
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