Barbara Bixon Carter (pen name, A.R. Allen) wrote The Chocolate Brown Social Club, The House of Cupcakes, and If You Really Loved Me You'd Take Out the Garbage.

Much of her work looks at the humorous side of life and she's good at it.

She bought a copy of "Wisdom Man" by Camilla Chance at a Women's Writing Guild conference in New York and that's where this story began.

What are the chances that a book on a restaurant table would move a server to tears?