On stopping by a diner with kids (unfiltered)

Long road trip overtired crabby kids in need of sustenance, stopping by a diner on a snowy night in the middle of nowhere. Your typical Michigan greasy spoon, where the waitresses insulted if you call her a server and doesn't hover asking how everything is tasting every 6 seconds but keeps your coffee fresh filled and hot and remember each order without writing it down. 

Where truckers line be bar stools chatting with the waitress, and smiling at the kids, offering them quarters for the gumball machine which you would rather they did not take or have but feel obliged to say yes, because golly they remind you of your weird uncle Dave, may he rest in peace. 

Kids eating f*** all of of the fruit you insisted they have and filling up on french fries and pancakes drenched and syrup then eating the jelly out of the little plastic cartons and putting salt in each other's chocolate milk and then begging for ice cream with half the overpriced pancakes uneaten. The little one eating french fries off the floor. 

Mom and dad unwinding over their coffee and sandwiches, relaxed by food and warmed by the cozy, onion scented ambiance. Just kind of let it happen and agree to leave her an astonishingly big tip. And the waitress comes and tells you you have the best behaved kids she's ever seen and brings them free ice cream anyway. And the kids smirking at you over their chocolate mustaches. 

And you wouldn't trade it for the world.