Wednesday evenings were always slow at the diner. She wasn't sure why it was always this slow. Sure there was a dinner rush between four and six but never the rush like the rest of the week. Even Mondays were busier than Wednesdays. Maybe people were starting to get the blahs by Wednesday evenings and would rather slum around in front of their TV's than spend an evening eating out.
Whatever the reason, she hated Wednesday evenings at her job. Not that she hated the job, Mr. and Mrs. Carson, the owners of this establishment called Karen-Kay's Diner, are a wonderful older couple. They have owned and run it for nearly forty years! She just didn't like slow evenings. Not that they we boring. It was more than that, it gave her too much time to think, to contemplate and evaluate. Something she truly hated doing and didn't want to happen again this evening. She would much rather be the smiling, happy-go-lucky waitress that her regulars knew and loved, the one they all liked to joke around with. Unfortunately, she could never seem to control her mind and stop it from evaluating her life all the time because her life had turned into such a shitty life. It would happen again this evening whether she wanted it to or not.
Rebecca Lee Schuler. That was the name her parents gave her at birth. Somewhere along the line, during her toddler years she guessed, she became known as Becca. She wasn't sure if it was her mom or dad who started calling her Becca but it stuck. She has been known to just about everyone as Becca ever since. Family, friends, general acquaintances, everyone she knew called her Becca. One would think that Becky would have been a more likely choice of a shortened first name/nickname but no, she was Becca.
Then her thoughts came around to her parents, Ronnie and Kelly. She had very limited memories of them. She remembers going to a sleepover at a friend's house when she was 8 years old. Could it have been devine intervention that she wasn't at home that night? That awful night. A house fire that started because of an electrical short in a living room lamp. Neither of her parents made it out of that fire. Because she was so young at the time, her memories of her mom and dad are fuzzy at best. Sure she can remember some of the funny and great times but the normal day to day memories are fuzzy at best. No matter how hard she tried to remember things about them, the memories are limited because of her age when they passed. She would probably even forget what they looked like if it weren't for a few pictures she had of them.
Both sets of her grand parents had passed long before she was born. Her parents were older when she was born. Her dad was 39 and her mom was 37 when she was born. Since mom and dad were both only children themselves, there were no aunts or uncles her parents age to take her in. The only family member she had was a great aunt. Aunt Darlene.
Aunt Darlene was 61 years old when she accepted Becca into her home. It turned out that she was a very good foster mother. She taught her a lot of great life lessons, including cooking, cleaning, finances, etc. Aunt Dee as Becca called her had been a woman of the world during her younger years. She and her late husband, Gary hard traveled the world many times due to his job as a minerals and precious metals surveyor.
Becca heard the stories of her adventures in the Amazon, Africa, the Canadian wilderness. China, Japan, Burma. You name the countries and more than likely, Aunt Dee had a story or two about that place. She had travelled the world and cheerfully told Becca the stories of her experiences, often pulling out pictures and old videos recording those memories.
She taught her outdoors survival tactics as well, things that she had learned in her many outdoor adventures. Finding food, water and building shelters. How to start fires using flint and steel, wood friction, as well as several other ways. How to use a topo map and compass to navigate, using the sun and stars for basic navigation. So may things that helped mold her into the type of woman she is today. Tools she often used when she had time off. She would spend a few days on her own in the mountains honing those skills.
But the most important thing Aunt Dee taught her was self respect. How to dress to impress without looking like a slut. How to be a woman of honor, not some gold digging tramp that would latch onto a man with money just so he could provide her with material things. She taught her self reliance, how to live without relying on others to support her. She remembered caring for the vegetable garden and how to test soil to know when to add lime or something different to keep the pH at the right balance. Feeding and caring for the chickens so they always had fresh eggs. Canning vegatables and meats. Fishing, in particular, how to catch them. Aunt Dee always said that there was a difference between fishing and catching.
She had fond memories her aunt taking her hunting for deer and bear. Aunt Dee teaching her how to shoot the old Winchester model 94 30-30. An old rifle that Aunt Dee's dad had left to her. A rifle that Becca still owned and still stood in the corner of her small apartment.
Had she gone into the foster care system, she probably wouldn't be the woman she is today. She wouldn't have the outdoor skills and knowledge that she still enjoys and practices every chance she gets, even to this day and she thanked Aunt Darlene for that.
Sadly, Aunt Darlene passed away when Becca was twenty years old. Cancer had taken her too soon. Becca really missed her, especially their talks about just about anything and everything. Aunt Dee's guidance that never led her astray. She could always talk to Aunt Dee about anything. Work, school, men, relationships, anything that was on Becca's mind, Aunt Dee was there for her. Unfortunately, Aunt Darlene was the last of her real family and she was gone as well leaving Becca to take on life without advice from someone who actually cared about her. Someone to help her make the right decisions. Without her, she definitely made some wrong decisions. Especially some of her relationship decisions.
A couple of the men she dated were complete losers and users, men who lived off of her and did very little to contribute to their lives as a couple. Constantly losing jobs because they would rather sit at home and play video games and drink beer than help make life easier for them. She didn't put up with those men, there was no relationship there, no partnership, so she pushed those ones out of her life.
