"God, I LOVE Sandra Brown," the server said to the woman sitting at the table next to me as I was seated. She was fingering an airport-bought hardcover, titled "Summer Lover" or "Days of Wine And Throbbing Cock." Something like that. The book was sitting on the pre-striped, pre-imbued-with-festivity table at the Pittsburgh airport Friday's.

I was trying to kill the two or three hours I had between flights and figured I'd go grab me some good, ol' fashioned, all-American beer and nachos and stare at the kooky stuff they had up on the walls. I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen one of these places, but imagine this if you can: a canoe, a bicycle, a stoplight AND signs for patent medicines with heroin in them. All right up there on the wall. That's funny stuff.

The server's nametag had "Dennis -- Serving you for 7 years!" written on it, which seemed improbable considering the server was a) female, and b) at most 19 years old. She was also relentlessly cheerful in a way that only chain restaurant workers can manage. You could've killed her grandparents and pet fish in front of her and she'd just smile and blink and ask if you had any room left over for dessert.

"Oh, yeah. So do I. Great writer," said the woman at the table, trying her best to sound urbane and interested, but distinctly failing at both. She was buried in a white polyester sweatshirt adorned with Rudolph or Blitzen or Jimmy or some other unfortunate reindeer. Whichever one he was, I felt bad for him. He had to deliver toys to ungrateful girls and boys while buried under fifteen pounds of red and green glitter and spangles.

She looked down guiltily at the empty plate in front of her, which held the mortal remains of potstickers, mozzarella sticks, or some such creation. She picked up the book and put it in her bag. The woman's two companions started crumpling their napkins and reading the ketchup bottle label.

Not picking up the hint, Dennis continued. "Man, she really is amazing. I heard her doing predictions on Montel a couple weeks ago. She was talking to this woman whose baby went all missing two years ago. She was, like, 'I see this field with these trees and a lake and I see your baby around there, all happy and healthy.' It was reaaaaaaaally amazing." Dennis' eyes had the placid, glazed-over look of someone on quaaludes.

"What're you talking about?" asked the customer.

"Sandra Brown," Dennis said. "Isn't she that psychic?"

"Oh," the woman said. "No, I don't think that's her." The woman looked embarassed for both of them. She looked around from side to side, desperate to get some help from her tablemates. None was forthcoming. Her eyes eventually settled on her fat-woman-breasts and the unfortunate reindeer lying horribly distended on top of them. He was stretched out like Gumby.

"Oh. Hmm. Do you guys have any room for dessert?" Dennis blinked and smiled. Sandra Brown was already a distant memory.

"No, thanks. We're fine. Just the check."

Dennis smiled at her one more time then turned to me, sitting just across the aisle.

"And what can I get you, sweety?"

My God. If she only knew.

Here she was, probably five or six years my junior, calling me sweety. I decided to leave a couple things that popped into mind off the list of things she could get me, and stuck with beer and nachos.

"Mmmm. That sounds gooood," she said, flashing me that friendly Friday's smile, then pivoting sharply to go off and place my order.

Just after she left, leaving in her wake a cloud of the kind of strangely sweet perfume they advertise on Saturday morning cartoons, the hostess came over with a stewardess-to-be in tow. The hostess was following her around with a glass of lemon water in hand like a lapdog with opposable thumbs. She sat down at a table perpendicular to mine.

The hostess walked off, leaving me to ogle in peace.

The stewardess, who had apparently passed whatever test allowed her to wear the US Airways vest but hadn't yet passed the one that allowed her to wear the US Airways ascot, unloaded her stuff on the happy table. She started with her Marlboro Lights, then lugged out her US Airways training manual. It was as big as, and bound like, a bible, all black leather with gold leaf lettering. "And on the first day, God, after a layover in St. Louis, created the heavens and the Earth. His bags arrived somewhere around the sixth day. His sex toys and toiletry kit were missing."

She was studying hard. She had this intense look of stewardess concentration on her face: lips pursed, nose twitching, mascara-drowned eyes forming different shapes every few sentences.

I was killing time and she was at least as interesting to stare at as the faux-old, happy ephemera on the wall. Since our tables were so close, she saw me every time I looked over. Which was often.

She'd look up to see me, and, as any non-developmentally disabled, non-visually impaired woman would do, looked away as quickly as possible, preferring (again, rightly) her Gospel of St. US Airways to me.

Fortunately, we had Dennis to smooth things over for us. She came over, dropped my beer off at my table and turned to the flight attendant.

"Hiiiii there! And what can I get for YOU tonight," she asked, voice dripping with caramel sweetness.

"I'll have the rib sandwich thing and, ohh, hmm...what kind of soup do you have tonight?"

"We've got Black Bean, Chicken Noodle, and Broccoli Cheddar," Dennis offered helpfully, reading off the list printed conveniently enough in the menu next to the sandwiches.

By this point, I'd taken to playing a game of "What're They Gonna Order?" I sized up the stewardess one more time, taking note of her all-American hair and all-American makeup and all-American sensible shoes and started quietly chanting, "Chi-cken noo-dle! Chi-cken noo-dle!"

She ordered Black Bean. I was crushed. I tried to figure out where I went wrong. I guess she was reading up on cultural sensitivity in her bible and wanted to unerstand the latino mindset as best as possible.

Dennis left again and came back promptly with my nachos. They were the most depressing things I've ever seen. There were exactly 12, each covered with a chip-shaped piece of cheese, and each with a lonely, solitary jalapeno melted into the center.

I looked at Dennis horrified, like she was crazy. She smiled at me and blinked. She left, and I pulled out my notebook and started scribbling angrily. The flight attendant looked at me nervously, maybe worried that I was writing about her. I'd look up at her every now and again, furrow my brow, purse my lips, then write another burst just to flip her out.

Ten minutes must've gone by and I hadn't touched my nachos (my beer was already a distant memory). When Dennis next walked by, she was fake not-pleased, like someone doing a bad impersonation of an overbearing mother. All was made right, though, when she saw my notebook.

"Oh! My! God! Are you some sort of a writer?" she asked.

I looked down at my notebook with its pages of illegible scrawling, then looked back at her. She was smiling and blinking. The stewardess was staring at me now, horrified.

"Sort of," I said.

"That's...so...WEIRD! I'M a writer, too!"

"Oh. Cool," I said. She just stood there, smiling and blinking, waiting for me to ask more. "What sorta stuff do you write?"

"All sorts of things! Poetry, prose...you name it. It's all about theology and philosophy and stuff like that."

"Theology and philosophy?"

"Yeah -- you know, like God and all that. He's really awesome! My life's been AMAZING since I took him as my personal savior!"

I picked up four nachos and shoved 'em in my mouth at once. "Check, please," I mumbled.

"OK. Sure thing. Got any room left for dessert?"