Never order food in excess of your body weight.

Host: The diner was half-asleep in the soft glow of neon. A rain-soaked sign outside buzzed faintly — “Open 24 Hours” — as if the words themselves were tired of promising eternity. Inside, the countertops gleamed with that worn sort of cleanliness that only time and repetition can polish. The smell of grease, coffee, and the faint sweetness of syrup filled the air.

Jack sat in a booth near the window, staring down at a menu the size of a novel. Across from him, Jeeny poured sugar into her coffee like she was sweetening a memory. Their table was already half-covered in plates — fries, pancakes, something that might have been pie once.

Host: The rain outside tapped lightly against the glass, steady as breath. The late hour gave everything a lazy grace.

Jeeny: (grinning) “Erma Bombeck once said, ‘Never order food in excess of your body weight.’”

Jack: (smirking, gesturing to the table) “Well, we’re already halfway there. And I’m not even halfway full.”

Host: She laughed — a soft, genuine laugh that lit the air warmer than the diner lights ever could.

Jeeny: “You’re hopeless. This is supposed to be a snack, not a last meal.”

Jack: “You can’t call it a snack if it comes on three plates. Besides, Erma Bombeck clearly never had diner hash browns at midnight.”

Jeeny: “You always justify indulgence like it’s philosophy.”

Jack: “Isn’t it? Look around — everyone here’s escaping something. The guy at the counter’s avoiding sleep, the waitress is avoiding boredom, and I’m avoiding whatever the hell tomorrow’s going to ask of me.”

Jeeny: “So your defense for gluttony is existential dread?”

Jack: “Exactly.”

Host: The waitress, a woman in her fifties with tired kindness in her eyes, dropped off another plate — this one stacked with waffles. Jack nodded his thanks. Jeeny just shook her head, smiling.

Jeeny: “You know, Bombeck wasn’t just being funny. She was reminding people not to confuse abundance with satisfaction.”

Jack: “And yet, here we are — surrounded by abundance and still talking about what’s missing.”

Jeeny: “Because abundance doesn’t fix hunger. It just distracts it.”

Host: A long silence. The kind that comes not from distance but comfort — from knowing you don’t need to fill every quiet with meaning. The hum of the fluorescent lights, the soft clatter of forks — it was music enough.

Jack: “You ever notice how food feels different when you’re alone?”

Jeeny: “How so?”

Jack: “It tastes heavier. Like guilt with seasoning. But when you eat with someone, even bad food feels like memory waiting to happen.”

Jeeny: “That’s because it’s not really about the food. It’s the ritual. The sitting down, the sharing, the laughter between bites. It’s communion disguised as calories.”

Jack: “So overeating’s just communion gone too far?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. We’re not trying to feed our bodies. We’re feeding the spaces in us that conversation can’t always reach.”

Host: Jack leaned back, pushing a plate away, his eyes following the slow spin of the ceiling fan above. The light caught in his grey eyes, flickering like a thought trying to take form.

Jack: “You know, when I was a kid, my mom used to say food was love. But I think that’s dangerous. People start mistaking excess for affection. More food, more attention, more everything — until you’re stuffed with things that were supposed to make you whole but just make you tired.”

Jeeny: “That’s what Erma was warning about, I think. Not just the food — the hunger underneath it. The one we try to fill with things instead of meaning.”

Jack: “So you’re saying gluttony’s not about greed. It’s about loneliness.”

Jeeny: “Isn’t everything?”

Host: Her voice softened, but it wasn’t pity — it was understanding. The kind that holds space for both humor and heartbreak.

Jack: “It’s funny, though. Bombeck made jokes about life, but they always hit deeper than they seemed. She made people laugh so they wouldn’t notice she was breaking the truth gently.”

Jeeny: “That’s the art of it. Humor’s honesty wearing a smile.”

Jack: “Like this diner — looks harmless, but every booth here has probably held a story that could make you cry.”

Host: Jeeny looked around — an old man stirring sugar into an empty cup, a young couple sharing a milkshake like it was a contract, a truck driver asleep over his plate.

Jeeny: “You’re right. There’s a strange holiness to places like this. It’s not church, but it’s where people confess without realizing it.”

Jack: “Over pancakes instead of prayer.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: Outside, the rain thickened — drops streaking down the glass, reflecting the diner’s red neon like tiny, falling suns. Inside, Jack’s laughter came low, unguarded.

Jack: “You know, maybe the trick isn’t to stop ordering too much — it’s to stop expecting it to fill what it can’t.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Or maybe it’s to enjoy the ridiculousness of being human enough to try.”

Jack: “So we eat too much, talk too long, feel too hard — and call it living.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Moderation’s overrated.”

Host: She raised her cup, smiling. He raised his glass of water in mock solemnity.

Jeeny: “To excess — and the lesson it hides.”

Jack: “To hunger — the only proof we’re still alive.”

Host: They clinked their mismatched glasses. The sound was small, but it carried. The kind of sound that ends a night with laughter and starts a memory without trying.

Jack: “You think Bombeck ever broke her own rule?”

Jeeny: “Of course she did. Everyone who jokes about temptation has already lost to it at least once.”

Jack: (grinning) “Then she was human after all.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And that’s the point.”

Host: The rain eased, the night deepened. The diner hummed on, eternal in its ordinariness. Jack leaned back, finally full — not from food, but from the rare contentment that follows good talk.

Host: And as the neon outside flickered one last time, it seemed to whisper what Bombeck knew all along — that humor is mercy for the human appetite; that laughter, not restraint, is what keeps us from consuming ourselves; and that life, when tasted fully, is sweetest in the company of someone who understands that too much — sometimes — is just enough.