“You have to explain to me the ink”, I asked the young lady who brought our food out.

It was a glorious sunny day as John and I sat down in the patio of Sunset Grille on Lake Allatoona after riding our motorbikes there. We had placed our order and were catching up on our families when the aforementioned lady got us our lunch.

Which is when I noticed the tattoo on her right arm. Tattoos are great ice breakers for me. Almost everybody has a story behind every tattoo they have. Sometimes remembering somebody near and dear, sometimes a life philosophy and sometimes “just because”. It has always been a great story telling topic for me. In full disclosure, I have stories myself but no tattoo.

In any case, the lady started telling the story about how she and her dad has the same tattoo and then went into further describing how she got it. And at every step, my memory cells were getting excited. Because the story was sounding very similar to somebody else Sharmila and I had once met.

I had to stop her – “Wait a minute! Do you know Courtney?”

“Mr. Roy, I AM Courtney!!”

Holy cow! I had absolutely not recognized her!

The back story is the following – Last summer, during Covid times, Sharmila and I used to come regularly to this spot, grab some food and sit by the dock. We had befriended Courtney then who had waited upon us. I think we met her a couple of times when she let us know that she was moving to St. Simon’s to study there. We were, of course, excited that she was going to pursue higher studies. And somewhat sorry that we won’t meet a familiar face again.

Thru Facebook though, Courtney and I had kept in touch. In fact, that is how I had found out that she would be back in Atlanta for the summer and was going to work again in Sunset Grill before going back to St. Simon’s again.

When I had walked in, I had indeed asked the lady in the front if Courtney was around. She told us that Courtney would be coming in for the evening shift.

So, I was not expecting to see Courtney at all! Turns out, she was there. And she had recognized me. Even though it was not her table, she had brought out the food for us!!

Man, I am getting old! Cannot recognize faces!! But I am glad she had recognized me.

It was great to reconnect with Courtney. We even took a picture before we left.

Hope to go back there soon with Sharmila again.