1.In my home town in the American Midwest there used to be a place called the "Y Not Grill" where we hung out as teenagers. We guessed that the name was probably short for "Y Not Come in and Get Food Poisoning."
2.It was a strange place. I was about to say it was awful, but in fact, like most things connected with ones adolescence, it was both wonderful and awful. The food was amazingly bad, the waitresses unfriendly and over the hill, and the cooks always had a cold and sniffed a lot while they cooked.
3.The "Y Not" had a waitress named Shirley, who always worked the night shift and was the most unpleasant person I have ever met. You would ask for, say, a double cheeseburger and fries and she would say "What? You want what?" "A double cheeseburger and fries.Please. If its not too much trouble. And a chocolate malt to drink." Shirley would look at you as if you had asked to borrow her car to drive to Tijuana on the US Mexican border. "You What? A chocolate malt?" you would repeat, trying to keep your voice from wavering.Shirley would stare at you, and then scrawl your order on a pad and shout it out to the chef.
4.I mention this to show that American diners were not always all they were cracked up to be. And yet, as I say, there was something wonderful about them. Even the "Y Not" had its good points. For one thing, it was open all night. For another it was safe and reliable, a little island of light and activity in the darkness of the city. In this respect it was just like that famous Edward Hooper painting of a city diner at night.
5.Hooper did not paint a diner because there was anything exotic about it, but because it was so ordinary. In the 1930s there used to be thousands of diners, along every highway,on every city corner, in every little town. Since the end of the Second World War, diners have almost disappeared. Today there are hardly any real ones. What you get nowadays in America is fake diners of shining stainless steel, where the price of a cheeseburger is twice that of a normal place.
6.And what of the "Y Not Grill"? Its long gone. Im afraid. But even now I remember it well-the steam on the windows, the huddled groups of truckers. Shirley lifting the head of a sleeping customer by the hair to give the counter a wipe with a damp cloth. I miss it a lot, but thank goodness Ill never have to eat that food again.
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