A Waitress Who Knows How To Keep Her Cool

Awesome, Editors' Choice, Employees, Inspirational, Non-Dialogue, Restaurant, South Carolina, USA, Weather | Working | April 29, 2020

My mom, stepdad, best friend, and I are driving from Vermont back to Florida after a summer trip to visit my mom and stepdad’s home. We stop for a day in DC to go museum-hopping and have a great time. Then, we get back on the road and our AC goes out. In DC. In the middle of a heatwave.

Nothing for it, we pile some extra water bottles from the trunk into the cab and carry on south, with a plan to get the AC fixed when we hit my uncle’s in Jacksonville — a ten-hour drive.

By the time we’re in South Carolina, we’re all overheated, tired, and hungry, so we decide to stop for lunch at a southern chain restaurant. We melt out of the car into vaguely humanoid puddles and manage to flop our way through the doors into the blessedly cool restaurant.

At first, the hostess looks up at us with the standard welcoming smile, but then she does a double-take and practically shouts, “Y’all look like death warmed over!”

I think one of us mumbles something about the busted AC and driving, but she’s already herding us deeper into the restaurant until we’re hit with an arctic blast straight to our flushed faces. We collapse into the chairs around the table she’s lead us to, that is directly under a vent, while she vanishes and reappears in seconds with a full pitcher of ice water and four glasses.

I don’t even remember what any of us ate or whether the food was even good or bad; I just remember this amazing hostess who made sure that we were taken care of first and foremost. She managed to make the rest of the drive so much more bearable!

This story is part of our Most Inspirational Of 2020 roundup!