prison orange chicken

Chicken wings, light of my life, fire of my loins. I’d go to the end of the earth for them and they for me. I will obsessively comb through the Internet solely for the purpose of drooling over the buffalo wing tag on food porn blogs. Eating chicken wings make up one half of my life’s purpose, while the other half is to dismantle the patriarchy. Casual. When my roommate told me she had to go to Hooters for an assignment, I naturally tagged along because the closest I’ve ever gotten to Hooters was when Luanne worked there in an episode of King Of The Hill. Everyone knows that Hooters equates to hot wings and hot girls. It’s also a rapey dude watering hole. Giving money to a sexist, misogynistic establishment like this isn’t really my style but I (almost) never say no to wings and a chance to tip a fellow working gal. A tiny spark of hope in me hoped maybe, just maybe the wings might be delicious enough for me to be able to dismiss the systematic patriarchy it took to fly onto my plate.

We were greeted by a hostess, cheery as a cheerleader, clad in the infamously required uniform of a low cut tank top, super extra push up bra, and hot shorts in the most garish shade of prison orange. I thought, “Maybe their outfits are so bright and neon in attempts to deflect all of the misogyny. Yeah, right. More like their outfits are orange shackles to the patriarchy.” This shade of prison orange was, however, complementary to the shitty shade of brown emanating from all the men littered strategically around the honky tonk restaurant, clad in nice guy aeropostle, and inadvertently leering at anything remotely feminine. Brown is generally a horrible ass color with the exception of chocolate, leather, and coffee. No, the men who, hashtag occupy hooters, are the ones who honk at middle school girls on the street and say things like “Damn you look good where are you going?” Only here, at the rapey dude watering hole, they probably won’t get punched in the face for it.

Christina, our waitress, was just as chipper as her cheerleader hostess counterpart. She told me the girls have a lot of fun working and that their managers send them home if they aren’t having any ‘fun’. I’ve worked service before and could tell that she was lying and dying to go home and watch girls in in bed with a bag of doritos or something because the table of aussies next to us had a particular gem who decided that it was a good idea to take his shoes off. Like, can you really not. When the chicken wings finally arrived…hot and naked, with sauce on the side, I’d been catatonically staring at a souvenir beer mug with the same prison orange shorts painted on it, probably by some poor woman in China. The wings weren’t delicious enough for me to be able to overlook the intense leering that some squat meatball of a dude kept doing at me so I gave him a death stare for all my cheerleaders in the joint. The most fighting I can do in a place like this is done through passive stares, eye rolls, and both my feet firmly planted on the floor. Our bill was $50 dollars for two plates of wings, some onion rings, and a margarita. If I’m going to be robbed in broad daylight I prefer it go into the pockets of women who need it. At least the ranch was good. I can’t singlehandedly dismantle the patriarchy but I can most definitely support a some women who harnesses their looks and charm to drain the wallets of dumb guys while get some decent chicken wings in return.