IHOP MEM'RIES

Hey

Vice

, Your

goths-at-IHOP

thing reminded me of an incident that happened in Georgia in my younger years… I was zonked out of my head at the local IHOP and the waiter—a large, imposing man wearing alligator skin shoes, gold chains, and a two-inch-long coke nail—was really starting to freak me out. "I'm listening, which one of you is gonna talk first?" he asked in a just-this-side-of-threatening tone as he jotted down my order on his pad. This was the same IHOP where my grandfather would take my brother and I as little kids and it was located adjacent to the Waffle House where in pre-delinquent times my father and I would bike to on Saturday mornings and whose parking lot was the site of the first, and thus far only, time I have ever held someone over the hood of a car and pounded their face to a pulp for calling me a dirty, selfish, cheap Jew. At least it wasn't the Waffle House. At least I still have that. But this…this was the sketchiest IHOP I'd ever seen. The bus boy, who I saw walk back and forth maybe twice all night with a mostly empty dish tub of cups and plates, was decked out in the finest FUBU threads illegally-gotten money could buy and more gold jewelery than all the Chassids on 47th street, encrusted with roughly a million dead-child-soldiers worth of blood diamonds. Mostly he just stood watch by the door. Watching for what, I have no idea. Customers, maybe. There were two LOUD prostitutes in the booth across the way and, the kicker, the place was crawling with pairs of cops who seemed completely indifferent to the very obvious drug and sex ring that was operating out of this suburban family establishment. Despite what one might think about a place like this, the staff was actually very attentive. The waiter stopped by the table about a half-dozen times to see if we needed anything, always agitatedly rubbing the outside of his nose in an up-and-down motion with his index finger. When it was time to pay up our server reappeared to refill our drinks. He set down four Coca-Colas on the table and next to each of them set down a shot glass also filled with Coca-Cola. Then he asked again, this time in a much more forceful and aggressive tone of voice, if we needed anything. Anyways, cutting to the chase here: We didn't. SORRY.

AARON LEFKOVE