The Lost Continent - Bill Bryson [78]
Somehow I doubted the veracity of these claims, but I was too weary to return to the road, so with a sigh I said all right and signed in. I took my key and a bucket of ice (at $42 plus tax I intended to have everything that was going) and went with them to my room. And by golly it was the cleanest room in town. The TV was brand new and the carpet was plush. The bed was comfortable and the shower really was a beauty. I felt instantly ashamed of myself and retracted all my bad thoughts about the proprietor. (‘I was a pompous little shit to have doubted you.’ – Mr B.B., Des Moines, Iowa.)
I ate fourteen ice-cubes and watched the early evening news. This was followed by an old episode of Gilligan’s Island, which the TV station had thoughtfully put on as an inducement to its non-brain-damaged viewers to get up immediately and go do something more useful. This I did. I went out and had a look around the town. The reason I had chosen to stop for the night at Littleton was that a book I had with me referred to it as picturesque. In point of fact, if Littleton was characterized by anything it was a singular lack of picturesqueness. The town consisted principally of one long street of mostly undistinguished buildings, with a supermarket parking lot in the middle and the shell of a disused gas station a couple of doors away. This, I think we can agree, does not constitute picturesqueness. Happily, the town had other virtues. For one thing, it was the friendliest little place I had ever seen. I went into the Topic of the Town restaurant. The other customers smiled at me, the lady at the cash register showed me where to put my jacket, and the waitress, a plump and dimpled little lady, couldn’t do enough for me. It was as if they had all been given some kind of marvellous tranquillizer.
The waitress brought me a menu and I made the mistake of saying thank you. ‘You’re welcome,’ she said. Once you start this there’s no stopping. She came and wiped the table with a damp cloth. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You’re welcome,’ she said. She brought me some cutlery wrapped in a paper napkin. I hesitated, but I couldn’t stop myself. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You’re welcome,’ she said. Then came a placemat with Topic of the Town written on it, and then a glass of water and then a clean ashtray, and then a little basket of Saltine crackers wrapped in cellophane, and at each we had our polite exchange. I ordered the fried chicken special. As I waited I become uncomfortably aware that the people at the next table were watching me and smiling at me in a deranged fashion. The waitress was watching me too, from a position by the kitchen doorway. It was all rather unnerving. Every few moments she would come over and top up my iced water and tell me that my food would only be a minute.
‘Thank you,’ I’d say.
‘You’re welcome,’ she’d say.
Eventually the waitress came out of the kitchen with a tray the size of a table-top and started setting down plates of food in front of me – soup, salad, a platter of chicken, a basket of steaming rolls. It all looked delicious. Suddenly I realized that I was starving.
‘Can I get you anything else?’ she said.
‘No, this is just fine, thank you,’ I answered, knife and fork plugged in my fists, ready to lunge at the food.
‘Would you like some ketchup?’
‘No thank you.’
‘Would you like a little more dressing for your salad?’
‘No thank you.’
‘Have you got enough gravy?’
There was enough gravy to drown a horse. ‘Yes, plenty of gravy, thank