Favorite Animal?
I think I almost told this anecdote once before, but for some reason I held off. Well, today, I happened to have a brief conversation about Hooters family restaurant. The story popped right back into my head. I think bits and pieces of it have been relayed, but never in its entirety. The occasion for the story was a birthday gathering for a friend of mine, who for the sake of anonymity I will call, Ty Webb. I drove up for Ty’s birthday and another one of our friends, Shane Falco (phenomenal intramural QB) was in attendance, and also played a critical role.
The party took place in the home of Ty Webb’s youth, and it was a pretty standard affair. There was a lot of beer drinking, beer pong, I dominated at Bubble Hockey (Go Russia!) at one point Ty Webb tried to order 20 pizzas, there were prank phone calls. We thought it would be hilarious to order food to dorm rooms at beloved F&M, so we did. (It was pretty funny). We posed as Brian Scalabrine and called another friend of ours who I’ll call, “Marty Clark” and told him he had a try-out with the Nets. We received a phone call from the Swan. It was really a great night. We got absolutely hammered. The only problem was a kid I knew in college who I wasn’t too fond of, we’ll call him “Elton John” showed up for the festivities. Fine. I can handle it, it was Ty’s birthday, the more the merrier.
So, the story doesn’t really kick in until the day after. Did I mention we were drunk? Ok, well everyone passed out in the wee hours of the morning. Let the record show that I believe Shane Falco brought 2 shirts for the trip. The first, he spilled McDonalds on during the drive. So, he changed into a crisp Polo for the party, but it already had undergone one solid night of abuse. This is all foreshadowing, and he may of slept in it, I don’t know.
Now, sometime not long after we went to bed I woke up feeling as if I was on death’s door. Too sick to sleep, I stumbled into the kitchen looking for nourishment. I ran into a wall of smell that can only be produced when 120 beer cans with a swallow of beer left each have been sitting on the kitchen counter all night. How I didn’t vomit there, we may never know. I pressed ahead, and secured a bottle of water, and some Drakes coffee cakes. I then went down to the basement where I waited for death or other people to get up. Whichever came first.
Sometime just after noon we rallied the troops, and made an appearance at the local Hooters family restaurant. See, I told you. I don’t recommend going to a Hooters north of the Mason Dixon Line, especially in the winter. I also suggest never eating there. Well, we pulled off the hat trick. It was at this Hooters where we were given the pleasure of meeting one of the dumbest humans to ever walk the planet. She was our waitress. Now, we were in various states of health. I was wildly hungover, Ty and Shane may still have been buzzed from the night before, and who knows what Elton was doing.
After nursing a lukewarm Bud Light for a while, and choking back vomit our brilliant server re-appeared at the table. You know that thing at Hooters family restaurant where the waitresses chat you up for a while. Southern hospitality and all? So, she wanders over and her opening line is to Shane Falco, who’s still wearing his Polo. She said, “Why is there a horse on your shirt? Are you some kind of champion?” I’m sorry, what? I’m pretty sure this prompted several minutes of sustained laughter at which point I said, “Why is there an owl on your shirt, is it your favorite animal?” The waitress was not fazed. She shifted gears, and asked Shane Falco, “Do you like writing on people’s faces when they’re passed out?’ I responded, “No Shane likes to hook up with people when they pass out.” This sent everyone, Elton particularly into hysterics.
There’s not much more you need to know about Hooters family restaurant except that Ty Webb gave his number (his real number) to the waitress. Not a huge deal, we leave. We drop Elton off at the train. He says to me, “You’re Funny. I wish I could like take you around with me.” Ok, weirdo. Get out of the car. From there we went to another bar, and the shampoo effect was really kicking in for Ty and Shane. I was still feeling pretty sick, and couldn’t quite get over the hump. We had a couple more, played golden tee, and then headed over to a friend of Ty’s who lived in this townhouse complex.
I felt a little bad storming in, because we were all kind of banged up, and they were just hanging out. At some point, we started drinking wine. Classy. It wasn’t long before Shane Falco had spilled red wine all over himself (ruining polo #2), and the white carpeting. Yes, white. Somehow we managed not to get kicked out, and lo and behold the waitress from Hooters family restaurant calls. She’s coming over, and she’s bringing a friend. Ok, well played. Well she arrives, and I’m afraid our troops weren’t in the best shape. Ty Webb was in and out of a napping state, and Shane Falco was blitzed. He would eventually spill another entire glass of wine….on himself.
During the initial awkward moments there was some confusion about who was hooking up with what chick, if anyone was, there was no plan. Shane Falco decided to start referring to both girls as “his girlfriend” while Ty dozed on the couch. He also claimed at one point that Ty was engaged (to be married). He was not, of course. After the most awkward hour of my life, the friend of the Hooters family restaurant waitress receives a call from her boyfriend. Oh. Weird. Can he come over? Yeah, why not. When he walked in, it officially became the most random crowd I’ve ever been involved with. It was cool though. We ordered pizza, and sat around like it was a 4th grade birthday party.
Finally, we got kicked out of the townhouse, and on the way out Ty and Shane got in a little scrap. One or both ended up down in the parking lot, and I had to corral them to the car. At this point, it was fairly obvious, I was driving. Ty took over the navigation to try to get us back to his parent’s house. The crazy thing was, it still wasn’t that late in the night. We’d just been very efficient. Shane was mostly non-responsive in the car until he spotted a Burger King, and demanded we go through the drive-thru. I skidded into the parking lot at full speed, and got the man his order.
The food seemed to calm everyone down, and then a mile or two from Ty’s house there was again commotion in the backseat. Shane was going to puke. Pull over. Pull over! So, I did, and Shane let loose wildly on the side of the road. Then he started freaking out. Why is my puke red? Is that blood? Why is my puke red? I reminded him he’d drank a couple bottles of red wine, and that seemed to pacify him. He closed the door, and we were on our way.
We got back to the house to the pleasant surprise of Ty’s parents being home. Now, I hadn’t seem them since college graduation, I’m not sure how long it had been, but you know, first impression as real adults. And, there we were. Burger King in hand, only 1/3 coherent, and Shane with the red wine all over his shirt. We looked strong. At this point I kind of realized that Ty’s parents thought we were all clowns, because they hardly batted an eye at our condition.
By all accounts the story should end there, but we haven’t had our moral yet. That’s because we weren’t done drinking. Back to the basement we went where Ty started cracking more bottles of wine. Brilliant. Shane Falco, who never turns down a drink was happy to partake, and there we all sat until Shane dumped his glass of wine all over my jeans and the floor. Party over. The moral? Don’t wear your only clean pair of pants around someone who has already spilled two glasses of red wine. And, there it is.
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