File this under “note to self”-

I consider myself something of a Diner Aficionado. Having grown up in the Diner Capitol of The World, most of my nostalgic memories include a reference to a Diner somewhere within the reminisce.

It was (and still is) commonplace to “go to ‘da diner” after nearly every family, social or business event- after church, winning a Little League baseball game, after the Junior Formal and Senior Prom, before a wedding, after a funeral, just got a new job, just got fired from an old job, got promoted, got dumped and, most often, sometime around two thirty AM, after leaving the bar.

We’re somewhat fortunate in the Harrisburg Region to be blessed with no less than a dozen or so authentic, Greek-run diners.

There’s the Summerdale Diner on 11/15 (in my experience, the most consistent and dependable diner in the area).

Coming in at a close overall second is the Colonial Park Diner- home of the server my friends and I have nicknamed “Lightning” based on the fact that nearly every time we’re there and have him as our server, he seems to have some odd diner-server-sixth-sense of knowing what we want before we’ve even arrived and seemingly immediately after delivering the coffee and water, our food magically arrives less than sixty seconds after placing our order.

And then there’s the Riverview Diner -that’s the new one right off of the Harvey Taylor Bridge in Wormleysburg- this particular diner I only visit as a last-resort. When it doesn’t matter what the aesthetic of the place is or whether or not I’m picky about the homefries which are served with the omelette’s, The Riverview Diner, in my opinion, is the diner equivalent of frozen Ellios pizza- yeah, it’s not that good- but it’s never really that bad, either.

Oh, we’ve got plenty of retro-train car diners as well- The American Dream on Herr Street (home of “The Rope”- featuring two eggs, homefries, toast and a three foot long piece of sausage for around four bucks) is the first to come to mind.

And the one across Market Street on Cameron- the name escapes me right now- is a bona-fide, real-deal diner as well.

And amongst all of these is the Capitol Diner- which drug itself right to the bottom of my “favorite diners in the area list” after an incident there earlier this morning.

You see, 31 Flavors and I had a long day yesterday. Ran a ton of errands in the morning, logged about six hours on the scooters, came home and took a well-needed powernap and when we woke up, it was time to clean up and head out to make the rounds.

After a stop at Suba to check out Knuckle’s rock band The Good Things followed by a brief visit to the killer-party at Josh and JoAnna’s, we made our way to ABC to catch Pistola Amore’s set.

And, right around two AM, I got that urge- that feeling that a Diner Addict cannot ignore: It was late in the evening- I had a belly full of liquor and all I wanted was a waffle, some decaf and a chocolate milk.

Now, normally when deciding which diner to patronize after a day like this, there isn’t much thought involved. Because ultimately, all diners are pretty much the same.

So, we pointed the car due-east and arrived at the Capitol Diner sometime around two thirty in the morning. The parking lot was packed- which was no surprise considering the bar-crossroads it occupies at the intersections of I-83, I-283, The Pennsylvania Turnpike and Eisenhower Blvd. I had been there before at this hour and hadn’t ever had a problem like we did last night.

We were seated immediately upon arriving- smoking table at the window- but that’s where the speediness ended. For fifteen minutes, we sat without my much-needed Chocolate Milk and cup of decaf. Not even a glass of ice-tap water. Until finally, the guy who sat us came by to take our order.

Probably ten minutes after that (which is twenty five minutes after we arrived) was the first time we saw a server walk the aisle with a tray of food- but none of it was ours.

Somewhere amongst the Cheeseburger Deluxe for the firefighters at the large table in the back and the open-faced turkey sandwich for the guy sitting by himself at the table three rows down and the ham and cheese omelet for the woman-half of the couple sitting across from us was a server- but she paid us no mind.

Our order had been taken by the host- an obvious sign that the place was understaffed for the post-bar rush of a Saturday night in Harrisburg.

To pass the time, I pulled all of the loose change out of my pocket- six quarters, two dimes, a penny and a nickel- and we proceeded to make artistic coin arrangements on the table.

Spinning a quarter and calling “heads-or-tails” was certainly less enjoyable than scarfing my oasis of an order- a waffle with two scrambled eggs and sausage.

We waited- and waited- and waited- until I finally decided that, if our order didn’t arrive by the time I finished my decaf, we were outta there. I would have rather left completely, driven to the Colonial Park diner up the road and repeated the process- hoping to whoever’s-up-there that Lightning was on the clock that night.

But finally, right near that last sip of coffee-without-the-kick, it arrived. Smokey old waitress came to the table- waffle, eggs and sausage on three different plates (I ordered them all together, by the way- on the same plate- stacked on the waffle) and grumpily announced “here’s your waffle”, dropping it on the table and scurrying off without uttering the standard “can I get you guys anything else?”.

So sometime around three-twenty AM- a full fifty minutes after arriving- I got my waffle.

Was it good?

Absolutely.

Was I happy about waiting nearly an hour for a freakin’ waffle at two-thirty on a Sunday Morning?

Obviously not, considering I’m spending a portion of my Sunday morning lamenting about it.

You see, the way I view it is this: certain businesses come with certain expectations. If you go to a bar, you expect a beer within the first few minutes you arrive. If you go to a gas station, you expect to be able to pull in, pay and pump your gas without a hassle. If you stroll into a furniture store scoping out the best deal on a new futon, you expect a sales person to greet you with that predator-like cunningness a furniture-salesperson embodies.

And when you go to a diner at two thirty in the morning after a night at the bar, I expect my waffle in something under fifteen minutes.

Is that too much to ask?