Saturday, August 29, 2009

My Walden



I have no shame. Some people confuse my quiet nature for shyness. But in fact, it’s laziness and indifference. My actions don’t embarrass me. On Wednesday I went to Hooters. Now when I was in high school and my AP Econ teacher invited the class to join him at Hooters, I declined. Somehow, a 50 year old bringing 20 teenagers to Hooters seemed unseemly. Strange. But when my friend’s bachelor party was at Hooters, I decided it was a worthwhile venture. Obviously I went to do a scientific investigation of the Hooters ecosystem. The following are my findings.

1. The customers at Hooters all have one thing in common: they are males. I suspect the XY ratio sometimes drops below 100%, but not while I was there. At one point I saw what I thought to be a female customer, but upon closer inspection she was a Hooters Girl leaving work. The customers, though entirely male, do differ greatly in other respects. There was a wide age range. There was a table of 16 year olds, celebrating a birthday. The bulk of the population was 20-30 year olds, getting their drink on. There were also a significant number of creepy old men. There were a sizable number of bikers, some truckers, and no other medical professionals that I was able to see. I’d estimate that a high proportion of the customers were intoxicated.

2. My table differed significantly from the norm. No drunks. No frat boys. No bikers. Just 6 Mormons. 4 married, 1 engaged, and me. 3 accountants, 2 MBAs and me. Apart from Charley “accidentally” spilling Pepsi on the waitress, no shenanigans occurred. I think it was accidental, but you have to wonder if any spillage of liquid on a tight white t-shirt at Hooters didn’t have some subconscious component. Due to the stifling monogamy of my group, no flirting with Hooters Girls occurred. I briefly flirted with the idea of flirting, but really, I just felt bad about it. Seeing the rest of the customers, I thought I’d give her an oasis of nonharrassment. Plus the 5 money guys around me were talking about pensions and Roths and whatnot, and I don’t know how to work flirting into that conversation. Let alone have that conversation.

3. The food wasn’t very good. Hooters knows that the way to a man’s heart is not his stomach, but his eyes. Admittedly, they had an uphill battle. I don’t really like guy food. Wings, ribs etc are pretty low on the Chris rankings. But it was serviceable. More noteworthy was how much food was wasted. They’d drop of wings we didn’t order, bring new plates when endless plates weren’t finished etc. It was as if they don’t even care about the quality of their food, like the food wasn’t a necessary component of their restaurants success. Strange.

4. And as you’ve all been wondering: what about the Hooter Girls? Turns out they lived up to their reputation. Kind of. The girls were actually very attractive. As previously noted, we didn’t flirt with our waitress, and she made no attempts to flirt with us. The Hooters “uniform” is a ridiculous thing, but, with all the objectivity I can muster, it’s not remotely scandalous. I see attractive girls wearing less at The Oval, on the street, at the gym, even at work. There’s a certain degree of sleaze in that the point of their presence, outfits and behavior is to be provocative, but really, what’s the point of sunbathing in the middle of campus? To be provocative. DJ’s wife warned him not to let anyone in our group get a lap dance. Though they were decked in tight shirts and short shorts, the most provocative act we witnessed was a hula hoop competition. This is PG-13 folks. Even upper PG. I’m not saying going to Hooters is a great idea, just that what you find at Hooters isn’t markedly different than what you find anywhere else. And while it’s pretty unavoidable, it’s also not to be sought out.

So that was Hooters. It was more entertaining than the wedding, though I admit that the wedding was one of the better ones I’ve attended. Congrats Charley. On throwing a good party. Oh, and also on getting married.

3 comments:

@emllewellyn said...

I was one of those female patrons once, when I was dragged to the Midvale, UT Hooters for dinner before The Dark Knight. It was super gross, our waitress was the very most super gross, and while I'm usually of the opinion that you could fry cardboard and it would taste pretty okay, the fried pickles were so. gross.

The Dark Knight was good, though.

Michelle! said...

I'm pretty sure the above picture is not Walden, but actually a still from Twilight. Caught!

anna. said...

"I have no shame. Some people confuse my quiet nature for shyness. But in fact, it’s laziness and indifference."

hah. i love that. me too. i've also been to a hooters before (in vegas)...same pg-rated entertainment and bad quality food.