When you trek across the California desert you drive past this old diner whose only notoriety stems from the two giant dinosaurs outside. My sister and I have long been obsessed with this place mostly due to its appearance in the cult classic, dare I say, film Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Pee Wee eats at the dinosaur diner only to discover his wallet has gone missing and he is forced to wash dishes to pay for his supper. Pee Wee befriends the waitress and together they watch as the desert sun sets from the mouth of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. As children we used to plead with our parents to please please stop and let us eat at the dinosaur place. Our desperate pleas were to no avail. Now I am grown and I have a driver's license and a car and a job and if I want to eat at the dinosaur diner of my hopes and dreams I am well within my rights as an American. Michael is hesitant but willing to acquiesce for the sake of the children (a category in which he feels I'm included).
We parked our car and explored the amazing plaster monsters of the past. We then head into the diner to score some breakfast. I can already taste the pancakes and am so excited to sit on a shiny red swivel stool and meet my new best friend, the waitress.
Immediately upon entrance I sense something is amiss. The diner, i.e. dirty truck stop, is not silver and red and shiny, it is brown and wilting and dumpy. It has faded gold brown carpeting and every piece of paint a Buffalo by numbers "art" has a price tag dangling down onto the wood paneled wall. I think to myself, oh well truck stops and dives always have good breakfast - and you can't screw up breakfast, right? I shoot Mike a reassuring smile in response to the "this is all your fault" glare he's shooting me. We open our menus to find fairly typical breakfast fare but the twist is that eggs, hash browns and toast are $11 bucks. This isn't a resort people. Michael's irritation has risen with the prices but we order up our breakfast with the intention of eating quickly and finding our escape. I always try and be empathetic to restaurant staff when the place is packed and everyone is scrambling to to grab sides of ranch for each of their seven tables so I completely understand it taking 25 minutes to make scrambled eggs. The other table with people in it must have needed ketchup. When the food finally arrived it was possibly the worst breakfast I have ever not eaten. Mike had gone scrambled and you could make better eggs over the campfire out of powdered egg substitute. I went over easy and received yolks you could use as door stops. We both had toast that was completely soggy save the rock hard crusts. We signaled for the check and $47.82 later we were free of the diner's talons.
My children will now spend their childhood driving by the dinosaurs in the desert pleading from the backseat for mom and dad to please, please stop.
Never.
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