A frequent customer to Denny’s, I already knew what I wanted: the Grand Slam Pancake Platter® with scrambled eggs, lightly toasted english muffin, and bottomless glass of Coca-Cola®. The waitress took her time to get back to our table for our order, so I pulled out my sketchbook. The other Denny’s customers had inspired many of my cartoon characters in the past, and this time was no exception. A family sat behind us and decided that the public arena of a smoky restaurant was the most convenient place to display the skeletons in each others’ closets. Ma told Papa how she knew he was sleeping around. Little Timmy asked why it was bad to sleep and Ma shushed him. Papa yelled at Little Timmy and Grandmamma to stop crying. I saw their reflections in the window and quickly sketched their caricatures, dramatizing the scene of course. Giggling at my genius and wit and beaming at my unparalleled talent, I glanced up at Tristan to see if he was interested in viewing my latest masterpiece. He was still engrossed in his history book, talking to himself at intervals to argue with the long-dead author.

The waitress finally returned, took our order, and speedily brought our warmed-up entrées to us. “Scrumptious” I said. “Dig in, Tristan.” I chased the melting butter around my pancake so it formed the words “Tristan Sucks.” Suddenly, a sticky hand grasped the back of my neck. I purposefully reigned in my imagination and tried not to think of what grotesque being could be attached to it. Tristan must have heard me gasp, because he looked at me with an amused, half-grin plastered to his face. I turned around, nearly knocking heads with Little Timmy. He was looking at my pictorial parody of his family.

“Look Mama! That girl drew pictures of you and Daddy. See?”

I was mortified. Before I could stop him, he reached over into our booth and grabbed the sketchbook from its place next to me on the table, thrusting it into his mom’s face. She began to apologize for her son’s behavior, but glanced at the page and decided against it. She stood up to her full height, which was monstrously full, and held the book over her head.

“The rudeness of ya’ll young people is just too much!” She shrieked. “Ain’t it enough that I have to deal with an idiot, adulterous husband and an A.D.D. kid? And ya’ll have to listen in on my conversation and then write it down. You’re just down-right sarcondic, if you ask me.”

I figured she meant sardonic, but didn’t dare correct her. By now, she had attracted the stares of everyone in the restaurant, including our waitress. I tried to grab the sketchbook from her hands, but she leaned across the table to show it to her husband.

“Did you see this?” She cried, shaking the book in front of her husband’s nose. “Look at the humiliation you have brought our family to. And my momma here just wanted a nice dinner with her daughter, her son-in-law, and her grandson. Is that too much to ask?”

Her husband wrenched the book away from her. His face grew as red as the ketchup stains on his white T-shirt and he tried to sit his wife down. He shoved her back into her seat and yelled profanities I had never heard before. The waitress found the restaurant manager and they finally made their way through the growing crowd to our two booths. I slid further into my seat and wished invisibility upon myself and the caricatures of the waitress I had drawn alongside the family’s. Tristan ignored the situation altogether and continued reading and arguing with his book.

“There’s a flaw in his reasoning and I can’t find it!” Tristan yelled, holding the book over his head and shaking it as if the words on the page would rearrange. He threw it down in disgust. His loud voice and odd behavior attracted the manager’s attention to us instead of the to the dysfunctional family.

“What's the meaning of this outbreak? What do you think you’re doing? Why is this yelling going on and—” The manager fired questions at Tristan and me as if from a semi-automatic rifle. He looked like the kind of guy who would carry around at least two of them for fun.

“Mr. Ace,” I said, reading his nametag and speaking with as much politeness as I could muster. “It appears there has been a minor domestic disturbance in the booth nearest ours.”

“Don’t give me that nonsense. Why are they blaming you? And keep that book down, young man. You’re trying my patience.”

“Sir.” I adressed him with more deference than I believed necessary. Apparently, interrupting his barrage of questions earlier had been a mistake. “Sir, I believe there has been a misunderstanding. Little Ti—I mean the little boy seated behind me has taken my sketchbook and used it to incite this violence.”

“I don’t care about your petty excuses. I want to know why this man,” he pointed sternly at Tristan, “threw his dangerously heavy book and is now yelling in MY restaurant.” Sir Ace stopped to take a breath and to lick the froth away from the corners of his mouth. “And I want to know why these people blame you for their current squabble.” He finished his accusations by confiscating Tristan’s book.

“Sir. This was a minor misunderstanding between a so-called artist and her subjects.” Tristan tried to explain. Of course he was unwilling to step into the argument until Ace stole his precious history book.

The manager would not let him begin his next sentence. “You’re not making sense. I want you two trouble-makers out of my restaurant.”

“Oh, Ace, look what she’s done!” The waitress yelled at the sketchbook. Great, she found her role in my comic strip and pointed it out to her boss. I definitely didn’t plan on leaving her a tip.

“That’s it, you two. Get up. I don't want you spreading libel in my restaurant.” He pulled the napkin out of my hand and shoved my now cold plate of pancakes away from me, knocking the salt and pepper shakers into Tristan's lap. Sir Ace called out to his star waitress, “Rosanna, please ring these people up at the register immediately. And I want Polaroids taken of them, too.”

I was thoroughly confused at the abrupt rudeness of the manager and used every ounce of my self-control to not glare at him with my patented stare of absolute hatred. I didn’t think it would help the situation very much. Instead, I directed my fierce look at Tristan.

“What are you looking like that at me for?” he asked, as if he didn’t know that it was his fault we were suddenly singled out as the sole cause of the scene around us. Imitating John Wilkes Boothe’s murder of his hero, Tristan raised his hand, with pointer finger outstretched and thumb cocked, and shot an imaginary bullet straight at my head. “You’re the cause of all this. See where your constantly critical view of others and your biting, sardonic humor gets you?” Of course he stressed the word “sardonic” with a meaningful glare in the direction of the still fighting occupants in the booth next to us.

I ignored Tristan and snatched the bill from the second waitress assigned to us. I had seen Rosanna rush off to the bathroom with a box of tissues clutched in her hands. Apparently she was of the over-emotional stock. I didn’t want to pay for a meal I hadn’t eaten, so I glowered at the paper that said I owed $15.74 plus tax and handed it back to her.

“I refuse to pay this ridiculous bill unless I am given the chance to at least finish my meal.” The waitress must have been new; she looked back at me as though I was a terrible monster and she my soon-to-be prey. She let the bill flutter to the table and then walked hurriedly to the kitchen, probably to tell the manager of my refusal. I sat back down in my booth, sawing at my pancake and shoveling it into my mouth as quickly as I could. Tristan was uninterested in eating and continued sharing how I was to blame for everything that went wrong in his life.