The newlyweds

Anytime we're staying in a motel, I'm awake at my usual time... which means 5 AM at the latest. I wake up dying for coffee. And most motels don't have coffee ready until their breakfast room is open. At the Ozark Mountain Inn, breakfast was from 7 AM until 10 AM.

Of course there was that little bitty coffee pot in our room. But those things don't make the best coffee. I tried to take a shower very quietly, then figured I'd check out the breakfast area just in case somebody made coffee early.

Since we were with Charlene and Pat, who like to sleep in, I didn't want to make a lot of noise. So I crept out. Or I would have crept out, but Charlene had things battened down so tight that I ended up banging something-or-other trying to open the door. She had the regular lock, the dead-bolt lock, and that thing that lets you safely peek out a two-inch crack in the door to see who's knocking, all secured. That last one is the the one that banged.

Darn it. Oh well, maybe they'd go back to sleep.

I arrived at the door of the breakfast room at 6:45, fifteen minutes early. I tried the door to no avail, and sat down on the stairs right outside, waiting.

A lady came out and said, "We don't open until seven."

"I know," I said. "I'm just waiting here."

"Okay."

About five minutes later a couple joined me with the same purpose in mind: Coffee. And the same lady showed up to tell them, "We don't open for breakfast until seven."

The couple and I commiserated about our caffeine addictions, and in the course of things, they told me they were newly-weds. They had just gotten married Friday, and they were on their honeymoon. We discussed the ridiculous cost of weddings these days (their wedding was small, but not quite as small as mine).

"Well, I hope it works out as well for you as it has for me," I said. "I've been married almost forty-one years."

"I don't think I'll live that long," the man replied. "By the way, are you from Lebanon, Missouri?"

When I told him I wasn't, he said I had a lookalike in Lebanon, where they lived.

So I have a twin someplace.

Once in the breakfast room, I asked them if I could take their picture to share with my journal-readers, and they agreed. I'm used to the look I get when I ask this question. Anyhow, here's the happy couple: