Rumble at the Waffle House

Few, if any of my family or friends, know of or can truly appreciate my obsession and devotion to the Waffle House.

I've have stumbled drunkenly through her doors after nights of drinking and debauchery in my youth. I have ordered more hash-browns scattered, covered, smothered and chunked than I or my waistline care to remember. I have been honey-childed, sweetie-pied, hey babied and hiya doing darlinged by some of the friendliest waitresses anywhere. I have sat drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes undisturbed for hours as I studied for the LSAT exam while I lived in Atlanta. So the place holds fonds memories for me.

As I sat in my favorite corner booth in my favorite Waffle House in Biloxi I notice that the voices were being raised in alarm. When I focused in on the conversation around me I realized that my life wasn't in danger but apparently life as I've known it at the Waffle House was. Seems that the Waffle Houses in Gulfport, MS just west of Biloxi were all going smoke free in the near future. The wait staff and the customers thought that this meant Biloxi as well and they were all up in arms about it. Fortunately a cooler head prevailed and informed the group that it was only in Gulfport. The realization, however, that there was a smoking change a coming to Waffle House silently loomed over all their heads though. They knew it was just a matter of time before all Waffle Houses are smoke free.

Smoke or don't smoke in the Waffle House. It doesn't matter to me either way. I'm just glad that I avoided a rumble at the Waffle House.

- Wil

P.S. I know that some of you are freaking out that you can still smoke in an eating establishment: get over it. Waffle House has great air handling systems, you don't even smell the smoke and you don't taste the ashes that fall on your food from cigarettes dangling from the waitress's mouth. What! LOL.