was watching too, only he wanted to make sure that she DIDN'T see him with his elbows on the table. "Here she comes!"

My brother made sure to drop his elbows, while I planted mine on the table, holding my menu in front to cover my smile. I could tell she stopped at the table across the room first. "Hi, how are you folks doing?" I couldn't tell when she turned around...

SLAM!!! She'd smacked her little tray down hard right in front of me. Startled, my smile disappeared as I recognized that was my cue. I slid my elbows off the table to allow my menu a comical flip down in her direction, to see her face. Whoa. Either she's a great actress, or she was really mad. Amber was staring me dead in the eyes and the lighting in the room made her face look beat red. I actually had a case of stage-fright, thankfully only 1/2 a second long.

"What did I just say?" "Um, 'How are you folks doing?'" "Before that!" "Um, 'Hi?'" Now I could see her face light up under the acting that she'd found someone to play with, someone to yell at, someone with which to entertain the other guests. "No, I mean before I left." "Oh, that. ... 'No elbows on the table.'"

Everyone was watching us...and laughing...We were putting on a show!

Throughout dinner, we played like this. Each of us seeming to have natural comedic timing, each of us coming up with our own lines on the spur of the moment. I felt like we were the stars of the diner.

Another antic I remember was when my brother and I sang "Yppah Yadhtrib" for a man in the next room, right after the traditional song. Amber stood there, watching us sing this in a language completely unknown to her yet familiar, to the tune of Happy Birthday. She looked so dumbfounded and scared that we might be crazy, that I'm surprised we finished. [Yppah Yadhtrib is simply Happy Birthday, but you pronounce the words backwards, but the words in order. We call this language Sdrwkcab (Backwards).]

After dinner is when Amber made sure that she'd made my parents' and siblings' day, too. She promised us that if we bore with her for about only 1/2 an hour, she'd have a fabulous surprise for us; but she had to send another waitress or someone to get it.

Meanwhile, I showed off my backpack that contained my huge pin collection, of which only two were like secret-rares: a Disney Club one that parents gave me and a Graduation one for my 8th grade graduation a month before. She perused over my whole collection with me, and then got excited, said, "I