Water with a Lime, Please?

This week I spent some time in a tiny town, shooting a segment for the show I am production managing. To describe this place I would say, “Imagine the middle of nowhere and then think of a place twice as remote.” And there we were, after hours of driving through winding canyons and past billowing smokestacks, we arrived at the local high school and introduced ourselves to the principal. He was delighted to walk us around the school and show us the trophy cases that gleamed with impressive athletic awards including several state championship trophies and an Olympic torch. We were led into the new gym and I swear it was like stepping into the 1950s. Twinkle lights, columns, painted stars and tulle framed the entire junior class as they learned their dance for the promenade.

Do not do a double take. You did read that last sentence correctly; the class was learning a synchronized dance for the PROM. The whole scene was so charming I got my face stuck with the corners of my mouth lifted for the rest of the day.

After shooting in the high school we went to the only non-chain restaurant in town. The parking lot was filled with potholes and the sign outside advertising soup and ribs also read “Big Mamas.” We walked past the counter behind which you could see the grubby kitchen, then the “salad bar.” We sat down an were approached by a waitress. I ordered water with a lime and the woman looked up at me from her notepad, cocked her head, nodded and walked away. Tony said, “Well, any hope of blending in was just destroyed.” Paul raised the pitch of his voice and said, “Can I have a water….. with a lime?” Then he looked at me and laughed. I punched him in the shoulder.

When the waitress returned, balanced on the edge of my glass were two wedges of what could hardly pass as a lime. The peel looked like the skin of a dying iguana: brown, rough and spotted. I have quite a bit of experience with limes and I am pretty sure they have to sit out for six months before they could even hope to look as sickly as these did. “Sailors used to pack limes on ships prevent scurvy. Those things had to be on the ships for months, right?” More mockery ensued and continued for the rest of the afternoon. I folded the limes up in several napkins so I didn’t have to look at their rotting skin. The waitress must have noticed because she glared at me the rest of the time. She took our orders, “Would you like a salad or fries with that?” I said, “The salad please.” “You can go up and help yourself whenever you like.” Remembering the aforementioned salad bar in quotation marks, I quickly changed my order, “Maybe I will have the fries after all.”

When we walked up to the front to pay the bill (it took me a long time to figure out I had to walk to the counter to pay… it has been so long since I have been in a restaurant where that is the custom) the girl huffed and puffed as I asked her to write me an itemized receipt. So, by this time I had made myself into a public nuisance.

I used to love the idea of living in a remote place. The serenity of small town life and the beauty of the open sky always enchanted me. However, visiting a town 100 miles past Nowhere this week, reminded me that I have become more fond of civilization than the wild countryside. I think I am okay with that, mostly because sometimes a girl just wants a fresh lime with her water.