Late Bird Special

T. was in the 'hood today, so we decided to meet up for lunch at DuPar's, not because Adam Corolla loves it, but because it's a Valley institution.

It was 3 p.m., and there were all of ten people in the restaurant, staff included. We were also the only patrons under the age of eighty. We were eating lunch. The others were eating dinner. I always associated DuPar's with old people, maybe in part because my late great-aunt swore by the restaurant, maybe because it's always old women inside the joint.

"So Golden Girls," I said to T. on the phone before we met.

"So camp," he said in the restaurant while eying the oversized white plates with the name of the eatery etched around the edges in brown.

Our waitress had dyed red hair even though she was at an age where she probably shouldn't be dying her hair red anymore. (To paraphrase my mother, when your hair is so gray that color fades after a week, you need to either let it go or force it blond.) She wasn't surly, but had this weariness about her, like she hated being stuck in this restaurant during the afternoon dry spell. The other waitress on call, the one who rung up our tab, was younger than us and almost too happy.

"I hope your food was delicious," she said.

It certainly was. That mushroom and jack cheese burger melted in my mouth.

T. is the second person I met when I started college. We liked to drink and smoke while watching movies like Pink Flamingos and tv shows like Absolutely Fabulous and we liked to drive into Hollywood and West Hollywood while listening to the B-52s or anything else that screamed 1982. Sometimes, we would go out to Beverly Hills so that we could get drinks at the martini bar inside Neiman Marcus and play Spot the Nose Job or Spot the Boob Job or both. Then, during summer vacations, we would retreat to the Valley and hang out at one of the million Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf spots on Ventura Blvd.

Back then, T. said "I'm so 310 and you're so 323."

And then one of us said, "And we're so stuck in the 818."

I was thinking about this as we sat in the restaurant and chatted. Twelve years have passed since we first met and we're still meeting up on Ventura Blvd, still bonding over John Waters and still watching the retirees who all seem to live spitting distance from the Valley's main drag.