Published: August 1, 2025
By: Susan Rosser
A Little Perspective Offers Big Rewards
Years ago, my dad took his car to the dealership for a quick repair. They told him it would take, at most, an hour, so he decided to have breakfast at a diner across the street. He was seated at a booth by a window. Well, I don’t know that detail for sure, but he told the story a few times over the years, and that’s how I always pictured it. He ordered coffee and his “usual” sunny-side-up eggs – probably with home fries and super-burnt toast.
The diner, I imagine, had cracked vinyl booths and a menu the size of Moby Dick. The kind of place where coffee is poured from a glass carafe, the air is heavy with the scent of bacon and pancake syrup, and a large glass sugar dispenser stands guard on every table.
The coffee arrived first, as it usually does in any diner. Then – this part’s a little fuzzy – maybe they brought him the wrong breakfast, or maybe the eggs were scrambled instead of fried. Maybe the toast was merely toasted, not scorched to resemble cooled volcanic lava the way my dad liked it. Whatever the specifics, about 45 minutes passed, and all he’d been served was that lone cup of coffee. He finally summoned the waitress and asked for the check. He mentioned he was just killing time while his car was worked on across the street.
She was overly apologetic about the less-than-stellar service – and the fact that he never actually was served breakfast.
To which my dad replied, “Any problem that can be solved with two bucks isn’t a problem at all.”
(Please note: this was years ago, when a cup of diner coffee ran about one dollar.)
I’ve thought about that line more times than I can count. “Any problem I have that can be solved with two bucks, isn’t a problem at all.”
It’s not about money – it’s about perspective, grace, and not letting minor frustrations take up too much space in your brain. It’s all too easy to get worked up over a missing soccer sock or an I-95 traffic jam that makes you late for the kids’ dental check-ups.
Just last night, I almost freaked out. I’d made homemade pizza dough in the afternoon, and once it was done with its second rise, I was ready to finish the job. But when I opened the package of mozzarella, it had this odd brown stuff all over it. It wasn’t mold, just some bizarre gunk – maybe from the factory floor. Whatever it was, I wasn’t cooking with it.
I stared down at that block of mozzarella like a woman scorned. I had been betrayed by cheese. It’s entirely possible the anger radiating from my eyes could have melted it right there on the cutting board. I’d gone through the trouble of making dough from scratch, and now I was without mozzarella. Not a good look for someone planning to serve homemade pizza for dinner.
The nerve of the universe!
But then I took a breath. I remembered my dad’s lone cup of diner coffee. The apologetic waitress. The calm shrug of a man who knew when to let something go.
I changed gears. Dug around the fridge and found some white cheddar.
Not traditional, sure – but it melted like a dream.
I think my dad would’ve approved. Maybe even said, “Any problem that can be solved with cheese isn’t a problem at all.”
Susan Rosser is the editor of South Florida Family Life. She has a tendency to get worked up about the small stuff, but is hoping to solve more of life’s problems with cheeses of all sorts.
