Canned apples, boxed mashed potatoes, and real chickens.
Several years ago, Ray, my brother Steve, and I went out to lunch together in Nashville. Steve suggested a meat and three place in an old part of town. Ray and I had been traveling, so I was ready for something different from the cheese and crackers and peanut butter sandwiches we had been eating in the car. I wanted something, you know, real. I decided on meatloaf and began trying to choose my three vegetables.
I asked the waitress if the baked apples came from fresh apples or from a can. In an accent I couldn’t identify, she mumbled under her breath, “From a can.”
So, I asked if the mashed potatoes were real or from a box. Again she spoke softly, “From a box.”
“I’ll have deviled eggs,” I decided. She mumbled again, this time with a sly grin, “They came from a chicken.”
My brother was also wondering about the unidentifiable accent and asked our waitress where she came from. She was from Albania.
That Albanian waitress really gave me a chuckle. I even laughed out loud all alone in the restaurant’s restroom that day. That was a happy day. I pray that you have one of those today.
A cheerful heart is good medicine . . .
Proverbs 17:22Â