Characters Welcome

There is a television network, USA, that is running an ad campaign
where they say 'Characters Welcome'. Well, I may as well use that
slogan myself when it comes to the restaurant...we are simply chock
full of characters, comprised of both staff and clientele. Annie, one of
the gals who currently resides at the local state hotel (3 hots and a
cot!), is definitely different. She has this great southern/country
accent, all her words slowly drip out, and you wonder how someone
like her ended up in a place like that. She has opened up to almost
all of her co-workers, as well as to several of the regular customers.
Just the other night, she served....and befriended....the Thompsons.
Annie showed them pictures of her children and grandchild, and
spoke of some of her plans after she is a free woman (in May of this
year). In the midst of all the sweet, sugary family sentiment, Annie
proceeded to explain exactly how she was finally able to get a divorce
from her low-life (as she put it) ex-husband. (sneakily, but technically
legally!) She admitted that when she did get married, she thought it
would be forever, but it didn't quite work out that way. It was at that
point where she uttered a line that simply had the Thompsons and I
almost crying for how hard we laughed. Annie had been speaking about
this friend of hers who is a baker and specializes in wedding cakes, and
how this friend had made the cake for her special day. To reiterate how
special her friend's cakes are, Annie stated how she still had "a tier of
the cake in the freezer, it lasted longer than the marriage." :) !!!!!!!!
What do you say to a comment like that? What can you say? I almost
fell out of the booth laughing, and I saw the Thompsons turning red
and reaching for their water glasses. The stuff I witness at the restaurant
is just too good, impossible to make up, or duplicate for that matter.
Seemingly innocent utterances like the one from Annie is what makes
me love my job, and makes it seem like anything but a job, but sheer
entertainment. Each time I walk through that restaurant door I am
entering a new adventure, as I never know what the night (or day
occasionally) will bring. And that, my friends, despite all the negatives
surrounding this business, is what makes it magic nonetheless. Drama.
Laughs. and most of all - Characters.