The Bang Your Head Cafe

In the 1970s there were large, flat parts of the nation where dining choices were limited. My wife and I drove across the country and back maybe twice a year; and one summer we stopped for lunch in a small town in the endless cornfield of Nebraska. 

Calvin Trillin once claimed, on seeing this cornfield, that the state motto of Nebraska was "Too long." 

I remember that, and I remember a comic who claimed that the state motto of New Jersey was "Shuduppa you mouth."

We entered the small town's only cafe and sat the counter. I asked the server (as they were not called in those days) what sort of sandwiches they had. "Meat," she said.

After a few seconds my wife said, "What kind of meat?"

"Meat! Meat!" The server, apparently a high school girl, stared at us with concern, perhaps wondering if we spoke English. 

We ordered meat sandwiches, which turned out to be grey beef between slices of white bread. As we were slowly chewing, the server turned and stepped to the side and rammed her head into a huge refrigerator with a projecting ledge.  For a second I thought she'd done it on purpose.  The girl staggered back a few steps and stood with her back to us, holding her gong in her hands. "Are you all right?" my wife asked.

"Yes."

We went back to chewing meat, and the girl wiped down the counter and twice more in the next ten minutes, banged her head into the high metal ledge.  

We left a big tip and drove on. We had dinner 200 miles west at a chain called  Stuckys, cheese sandwiches that came sealed in plastic.