Couple’s Kind Gesture Inspires Young Man

One evening this fall my girlfriend and I were out to dinner. This dinner was a very special occasion. It was Homecoming for Rogers High School, where I’m a junior and Deanna is a sophomore.

We had been planning for this evening for a couple of months but I had just called for reservations that evening. We chose to go to Chica-Ria at Five Mile Plaza where I used to work.

I was looking forward to the date but not the bill because I am a high school student, much like other students, with little money. I had just started a new job and hadn’t been paid yet so I had to borrow some money from my parents. But it was a special occasion for us and I wanted to splurge a little.

We enjoyed our dinners of chicken cordon bleu and a hamburger and were looking forward to the homecoming dance that evening. After dinner when the waitress brought the check, I was hoping it wasn’t too much. I opened it up to see how much it was and then she told us it was already taken care of.

I wasn’t expecting that, but I was grateful to the restaurant owners - my former bosses - who I thought had paid the bill.

Just recently, though, Marcy, the waitress who served us at the restaurant, was a customer at the place I work now and I asked her who had paid for our Homecoming meal.

To my surprise she said it was not the owners but an older married couple who were seated at the next table. Marcy told me they bought our dinner for us because they thought we were a cute couple.

It seemed like one of those things you read about. It was just out of the blue, an act of kindness.

So I am writing to tell this couple, whoever they are, thank you. Some day I will repay the favor by doing the same for a high school couple.

MEMO: Your Turn is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion pages. To submit a Your Turn column for consideration, contact Rebecca Nappi at 459-5496 or Doug Floyd at 459-5466 or write Your Turn, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615.