Recently, with the day's work done, I finally settled into my recliner chair in what they call the family room out here, and what I'll always call the parlor.

The hour was late, but still wide awake, I began what my grandsons call television "surfing." With no sports events or Public Broadcasting System stations featuring fine music, I finally got to some late night movie channels and -- bang -- there it was!

Jack Nicholson, a fine actor, was 37 years younger in those days and doing a marvelous job in a study of a musician with great promise who gave up a musical career to work on an oil rig. A guy's gotta eat!

The scene from "Five Easy Pieces" took place in a diner, and Jack was doing his famous "chicken sandwich" speech, trying to order what he wanted. The stern, unbending waitress, a Buchenwald concentration camp guard type, was letting Jack know that rules are rules, and if he didn't like the restrictions she placed on his order, he could get out of the diner and get lost.

Now, Nicholson is a guy with a very short fuse, and the outcome of that scene found Jack busting up the joint and coming up a real loser, and all because of a lousy chicken sandwich.

That night, lying in bed waiting for sleep to come, I thought about Nicholson's restaurant scene and how often the situation comes up. Fortunately, I'm a guy with a very long fuse. I had to be in a job where life and death were at stake, and perhaps as a consequence, I really don't hate anybody or anything -- unlike some of the e-mails I get with their "Kill-Crush-Destroy" messages, which I immediately delete.

But a recent happening in Napa did come to mind, a night when I took my two grandsons, Robbie and Phil, to a local restaurant.

The boys gave our waitress their orders, including very, very large sodas, and I asked the waitress for a cheeseburger, "No French fries, please."

The lady taking our orders hesitated when I asked for a small side dish of baked macaroni. She said, "If you want macaroni, I'll have to charge you for a second entree." Unlike Jack Nicholson, I hesitated for a moment, then said "OK, because I really don't want French fries."

But that little exchange had a happy ending. When the waitress brought our food, she also brought some surprising news. "We're not charging you extra for the baked macaroni." Justice had triumphed.

I didn't know why she bent the rules for me and I didn't ask -- but she did. Maybe, I thought, because she had been my waitress before and I've never "short-sheeted" a waitress or waiter in my life, because those folks work very hard for very little.

Nicholson's scene on screen and mine right here in the Napa Valley reminded me of a recent e-mail I got from another Napan, a friend named Rita.

Rita does not send "Kill-Crush-Destroy" messages, but stories of good people doing the best they can, and often a message about someone or something that absolutely brightens my day and sometimes causes me to laugh out loud.

A recent letter from Rita told the story of a man and wife, both seniors, who had breakfast one day at a restaurant featuring a "Seniors Special."

The meal consisted of two eggs, bacon or ham, hash browns, toast and all the coffee or tea you could drink, all for $1.99. Not bad!

When the waitress came to take the couple's order, the husband said, "That $1.99 special looks real good, so we'll have it, please -- oh, and hold the eggs for my wife, she can't have them."

To the gentleman's rather modest request, the waitress, a "Rules is rules" gal, said, "Then I'll have to charge your wife $2.49, because without the eggs the rest are a la carte for each item on the menu."

The befuddled wife said, "You mean to tell me that I have to pay an extra 50 cents for not taking the eggs? Are you kidding?" That's when she heard the waitress go through her "Rules is rules" routine, a smile never crossing her lips.

The wife, exasperated and trying to make sense out of what she thought was an old Al Capp comic book routine, said, "Oh give me the eggs then, but do I have to eat them?"

All she got from this waitress from hell was, "Do you want your eggs sunnyside up, scrambled or over easy?"

The wife said, "I want my eggs raw and in the shell -- you got that?" The waitress beat a hasty retreat to get further instructions from her high command, and apparently no rule infractions could be found. So she got her $1.99 meal with two raw eggs still in their shells on her plate.

The elderly woman exhibited great spunk and wisdom. She took the eggs home and used them in the cake she baked for her grandchildren.

The moral of this story: "Don't mess with seniors!"

P.S. If you've ever run into a situation like Nicholson's, Parker's or the elderly lady ordering her special, drop me a line if you're up to it.

Ev Parker can be reached at evjenpar@mailbug.com or 224-9956.