So, we were on our way to a used book sale (what else?) in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, but decided to stop for lunch on the way. Boonsboro, Maryland seemed like a likely spot. All we needed was a restaurant and a parking space. And, indeed, we saw a small sign that said “Mini-Mart and Diner”, and then we saw a parking place. Right in the middle of this charming, historic town.

We went in the door and saw that we were in a mini-mart that sorta looked like a second class truck stop on a highway. To the right, was an open door and a sign that said “Please Seat Yourself” and a room that had maybe six tables. One table had two men and a young child, perhaps a year old. One table had a young couple, he with a beard and a laptop, she who stood up the entire time, drinking a cup of coffee and doing things on her smartphone, while she was talking to him. A third table had a single tall man, and cup of coffee and a phone and some papers. A fourth table had a few dirty dishes. So we had two choices, a table right next to the door, and a table between the baby table and the young couple table. This is the one we chose.

A rather disheveled looking woman came and gave us each a regular menu (a lot on it) and a piece of paper with the specials. She only had one of the paper with the specials, which seemed to upset her – with what or with whom, we were not sure. She found it, or someone gave it to her, and she gave it to us.

While this was going on, the tall man at the back table got up, took a broom and started sweeping the floor under another table, where someone must have recently sat. Since I thought that he was a customer, it surprised me that he was sweeping, and it occurred to me that he must work at, or own, the mini-mart. It was generally hard to tell anyone’s position – for example, the young woman standing up with her phone and her coffee had a number of conversations with the tall man. Her boyfriend (that is what he looked like) said nothing and didn’t join into the conversations. I didn’t know if she was also an owner or family member, or maybe just a local who knew everyone…..or what? It all seemed confusing.

The tall man then asked us what we wanted to drink. We told him, and started to order, but he told us he was just going to get us the drinks and then get our order. He said that was because, to take the order, he needed a “machine”. In a few minutes, he came with my coffee, and a few minutes later, the disheveled woman brought Edie her ice tea.

A young man (maybe he was 16 – maybe) was asking the baby table what they wanted to eat. He seemed to be having trouble, and the disheveled woman was trying to help him out.

The tall man then asked us what we wanted. We told him that we each wanted a vegetable omelet, and he was about to take our order, when the disheveled woman came to him and said “Dom will do it.” He smiled and walked away. He told us that this was Dom’s second day, and we should be nice to him.

Dom came to us with the machine and asked what we wanted. We told him that we each wanted the vegetable omelet and hash browns, but that we didn’t want the “creamy jalapeno sauce” that the menu said would be on the omelet. This really puzzled poor Dom, because he couldn’t figure out how to tell the machine to leave out the sauce. But he called over the tall man, who showed him how to pull up something called “special comments” or something like that.

Dom was very nice, and very unsure of himself, and it was obviously difficult for him to take our order on this machine (it may be that just talking to anyone was hard for him; in fact we may have been the first people he ever talked with). But then there were other questions, each of which he had to ask each of us separately and input separately into the machine. Do we want hash browns, or tater tots? Since we don’t want the jalapeno sauce, do we not want any peppers in the omelet? Do we want toast or a muffin or a biscuit? What type of topping do you want on your biscuit – butter or nothing or ??? The ordering process took so much time that we could have already finished our omelets if the tall man had taken our order when he tried to. Dom apologized for how long it took.

About 6 hours later, the omelets were delivered. In the meantime, we watched the baby throw crayons on the floor, we watched two more people come in the “diner”, watched the girl with the coffee speak with the tall man, and tried to figure out the Keno and Horse Race screens flashing on the wall above the door. And we also talked to the disheveled lady, who told us that it was impossible to get anyone to work in the diner, that it was Dom’s first day (yes, it was his second, but on his first, he just watched) and he was wonderful, but the others just drove you nuts, and besides that no young people wanted to work. How do they money? What do they do all day? How can you not want to work? She told us she was even thinking of closing the diner at the end of the year.

Eventually, our omelets came. They were very attractive looking, moist and fluffy, with cheese on the top, and the hash browns looked just right. The biscuit was an English muffin, it was buttered, and that was fine. But as we ate into the omelet, we realized something was missing – vegetables.

The next time the disheveled woman was in our neighborhood I called her over and asked her why there were no vegetables. She was taken aback and asked us if we had ordered a cheese omelet or a vegetable omelet. I thought about asking her to ask her machine, but I didn’t. We told her that it was okay, that the omelet was very good and we were happy with it, but just wanted her to know. We didn’t even tell her that our biscuit turned into an English muffin. The muffin would have actually been a better choice.

The disheveled woman went and talked to the cook (we actually thought she was the cook and that she might have gone and talked to herself), and came back and said that the cook told her that he thought that he had made the most beautiful, fluffy omelets, that he was so proud of them and how they looked when he folded them over, that he just forgot to put the vegetables in. Mistakes happen, she said. It seemed like the tall man wanted to express his anger to the cook, but the disheveled woman told him not to. It was just one of those things, she said.

We paid, and we left. Everyone wished us a good day and a good weekend. They were all very nice. I felt we had been given a rare treat. Good food, coffee and tea. And an hour’s entertainment. All for about $20.

If you ever get hungry in Boonsboro, stop by the Mini-mart Diner and give our best to the disheveled lady, the tall man, Dominick, the mystery cook, and – if they are still there – the young man with the laptop who doesn’t talk and his girlfriend, who will be standing up. And remember, it doesn’t matter what you order. It’s just like the telephone game – the order goes from you to Dom to his machine to the disheveled lady to the cook (maybe) and by the time it gets to the cook, it will bear no relationship to what you ordered. But I think you will be very well satisfied because it will be very good.