Read Online Don't Get Too Comfortable by David Rakoff - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: David Rakoff
Tags: Fiction
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its chicken wings and hyper-mammalian waitresses. Every flight has three attendants who are dressed in traditional airline uniforms and trained in safety procedures, and two Hooters Girls, who aren't and aren't.
The aircraft arrives at the gate. White and orange with a blue racing stripe, the restaurant's owl logo graces the tail fin. The curious bird's eyes are bugged out in voyeuristic shock, forming the “OO” in the name. There is no rush among those of us waiting to photograph the plane through the windows. Numbering just eleven individuals, we are four more passengers than the seven who disembark. Behind them, the two Hooters Girls, one blond, one brunette, emerge dressed in body-covering track suits in sherbet-orange viscose. This is their more modest walking-around-the-airport attire. They look like Olympic athletes representing the tackiest country on earth, which I guess they kind of are.
They return in time to board before us and peel down to their uniforms of white tank tops, orange shorts, ribbed white athletic socks, and white leather sneakers. (They also wear nude-tan hose to even out skin tone and give their legs that just-off-the-beach sun-burnished glow, although it's actually closer to a barbecue-chicken-under-heat-lamps shade of orange.) Their hair is styled, their makeup prom-ready. Our pilot is a heavily Southern young man with strawberry blond hair and rosy cheeks. He looks confidence-destroyingly young but is thirty-seven and already in his second piloting job. Previously, he was employed at American International Airways, a cargo carrier. I had been expecting some bitter old drunk, drummed out of legitimate service, barred from the pilot's lounge. There is no ignominy in this posting. I ask if he ever gets teased by air traffic control when he flies in or out of airports. Occasionally, but they usually seem to be jokes about chicken wings.
I sit across the aisle from a couple from Staten Island, a friendly Vin Diesel type and his fiancée girlfriend. She has a house down in Myrtle Beach, right near her grandmother.
The blonde takes the microphone. “Good morning everybody. [It is 7:45 in the evening.] I'm Heather and this is Jennifer. We're your Hooters Girls. See you once we're airborne!” The flight attendants prepare the cabin for takeoff while Heather and Jennifer chatter together in the front seat, having no training, safety or otherwise, for this gig. They work at the Colonial Mall Hooters in Myrtle Beach. Heather sees the Staten Island girl's engagement ring, and swoops down to take her hand and exclaim with unselfconscious awe over the diamond. It's congenial and casual here, from the piece of green gum stuck to the back of my stowed and secured tray table staring at me at eye level, to the fact that the flight attendants and the Hooters Girls all have the same song stuck in their heads. They repeatedly sing the refrain “One More Ti-yime,” and break up laughing.
Normally, once we had reached cruising altitude, the Hooters Girls would be taking charge to lead a trivia contest, with Hooters-related questions, such as how many sauces do they have for their wings? (Six: mild, medium, hot, Spicy Jack, Three Mile, and 911.) Or, how many Hooters are there in Myrtle Beach? (Four.) Sadly, the airline just inaugurated its service from Baltimore that very day, so every available piece of schwag—golf balls, caps, etc.—that might have served as our prizes was pressed into service for the mucky-mucks on that maiden voyage.
Instead, they announce that Hooters T-shirts are for sale. The Vin Diesel guy gets up to model one of them. “What's your name?” Heather asks him.
“Mitch.”
She looks scandalized. “Bitch?” she asks.
“Mitch.”
Working a flight is preferable to a shift in the restaurant. It's easier, for one thing, and they get $13.50 an hour. The wage for waiting tables is paltry: less than $3.00 an hour plus tips, although a Hooters Girl can make a tidy sum at certain
The aircraft arrives at the gate. White and orange with a blue racing stripe, the restaurant's owl logo graces the tail fin. The curious bird's eyes are bugged out in voyeuristic shock, forming the “OO” in the name. There is no rush among those of us waiting to photograph the plane through the windows. Numbering just eleven individuals, we are four more passengers than the seven who disembark. Behind them, the two Hooters Girls, one blond, one brunette, emerge dressed in body-covering track suits in sherbet-orange viscose. This is their more modest walking-around-the-airport attire. They look like Olympic athletes representing the tackiest country on earth, which I guess they kind of are.
They return in time to board before us and peel down to their uniforms of white tank tops, orange shorts, ribbed white athletic socks, and white leather sneakers. (They also wear nude-tan hose to even out skin tone and give their legs that just-off-the-beach sun-burnished glow, although it's actually closer to a barbecue-chicken-under-heat-lamps shade of orange.) Their hair is styled, their makeup prom-ready. Our pilot is a heavily Southern young man with strawberry blond hair and rosy cheeks. He looks confidence-destroyingly young but is thirty-seven and already in his second piloting job. Previously, he was employed at American International Airways, a cargo carrier. I had been expecting some bitter old drunk, drummed out of legitimate service, barred from the pilot's lounge. There is no ignominy in this posting. I ask if he ever gets teased by air traffic control when he flies in or out of airports. Occasionally, but they usually seem to be jokes about chicken wings.
I sit across the aisle from a couple from Staten Island, a friendly Vin Diesel type and his fiancée girlfriend. She has a house down in Myrtle Beach, right near her grandmother.
The blonde takes the microphone. “Good morning everybody. [It is 7:45 in the evening.] I'm Heather and this is Jennifer. We're your Hooters Girls. See you once we're airborne!” The flight attendants prepare the cabin for takeoff while Heather and Jennifer chatter together in the front seat, having no training, safety or otherwise, for this gig. They work at the Colonial Mall Hooters in Myrtle Beach. Heather sees the Staten Island girl's engagement ring, and swoops down to take her hand and exclaim with unselfconscious awe over the diamond. It's congenial and casual here, from the piece of green gum stuck to the back of my stowed and secured tray table staring at me at eye level, to the fact that the flight attendants and the Hooters Girls all have the same song stuck in their heads. They repeatedly sing the refrain “One More Ti-yime,” and break up laughing.
Normally, once we had reached cruising altitude, the Hooters Girls would be taking charge to lead a trivia contest, with Hooters-related questions, such as how many sauces do they have for their wings? (Six: mild, medium, hot, Spicy Jack, Three Mile, and 911.) Or, how many Hooters are there in Myrtle Beach? (Four.) Sadly, the airline just inaugurated its service from Baltimore that very day, so every available piece of schwag—golf balls, caps, etc.—that might have served as our prizes was pressed into service for the mucky-mucks on that maiden voyage.
Instead, they announce that Hooters T-shirts are for sale. The Vin Diesel guy gets up to model one of them. “What's your name?” Heather asks him.
“Mitch.”
She looks scandalized. “Bitch?” she asks.
“Mitch.”
Working a flight is preferable to a shift in the restaurant. It's easier, for one thing, and they get $13.50 an hour. The wage for waiting tables is paltry: less than $3.00 an hour plus tips, although a Hooters Girl can make a tidy sum at certain
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