Dispatches from the Field: A Run of Kates and Free Stuff

Our daughter Kate (aka Katy, aka Katrina, aka Trina-pop) will appreciate this. The first night on the road we dined at the 125 year old Palace Cafe in Ellensburg. Our delightful server was Katy.

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Breakfast the next day was at a beautifully restored diner, and my server was a lovely young woman named…Kate.

For our next meal we were served by…Katrina. Thought we had a run going until the next day – our server was Jocelyn. I asked “may I call you Kate?” Nope.

I had another run going. Our first dinner in Canada we had a lot of fun with the server and the busser, and they ended up comp’ing our desert.  The next morning I insisted that a young woman go ahead of me in line at Starbuck’s since she was obviously working and I’m obviously retired. Reluctantly she agreed, and then she insisted on buying my latte:

Nicole is a marketing rep for Labatt’s (part of the Budweiser/InBev empire). She was in town to represent Labatt’s at a golf tournament put on by a big restaurant chain in Canada called Earl’s. I told her I used to represent a large Budweiser distributor when I was still in law practice, so we talked about the beer business, and her life in Vancouver, while waiting for our coffees. I was getting spoiled. Every meal since crossing into Canada had involved free stuff.

In her honor, we dined at Earl’s that night. It helps that Earl’s has a spectacular waterfront view of Lake Okanagan.

We had a good time cajoling our server, but alas, no free stuff. The run was over.

We met two other lovely ladies while walking around Kelowna:

“I get that we’re twins and have to dress the same, but do we really have to have same kind of ice cream every time?” I think they were both named Kate, but I’m not sure about that.