Sunday, October 09, 2005

We Hopped at IHOP

Saturday night Doug, Lucas and I went to IHOP after the bar closed. While this sounded good at the time, I never would've guessed we would be dodging syrup shortly after we arrived.

The IHOP is only about two or three miles from my house, but it proved to be a whole other country when we stepped inside. This place was jammed with various slices of life that I don't normally encounter. There were several J-Lo-esque girls with huge glittering belts that barely covered their cooter. They had lots of bling and all were on their cell phones. True to J-Lo form, they were accompanied by some pretty serious thugs. These guys had backwards baseball hats and sports jerseys with baggy jeans and bright white Addidas. They, too, had mucho blingo--large diamond crosses hung by thick gold chains. One even wore a wife beater. There were many red, itchy eyes. Most of them with dialated pupils.

Things seemed to be going well for a while. We had coffee, ordered our food and had just started eating when the shit hit the fan. Or rather, the syrup. In a matter of seconds, an entire section of the IHOP (probably about 20 people) erupted in a violent scuffle. Chairs flew across tables, syrup was flung all over several customers. Dishes were breaking, voices were raised, cops were called. Honestly, I was pretty friggin scared. I couldn't help but think that P-Diddy was packin' heat and that I was sure to die in what would become the great Kansas IHOP Massacre of 2005. Movies would be made. Memorials erected.

Naturally, I felt compelled to docment this. Though I did not have the foresight to flip on my camcorder and catch the action (oh god, that would've been awesome), I did snap a couple of blog-worthy shots. Here are the tables after the action died down:

Thankfully, the scuffle made its way outside and the few remaining patrons sat and gloated at how mature they were for not fighting. We had an unspoken comraderie that I imagine folks share after similar tragedies like a plane crash or a house fire. I kept saying "J-Lo" and "P-Diddy" really loud to see if I could start some shit of my own. It didn't work. Somehow no one was threatened by me. Damn.

Kudos, though, to the police force. They were on this like white on rice. In fact, I think dishes were still breaking when I saw my first set of flashing blue and red lights. In a matter of minutes, there were probably 10 cruisers in the parking lot. This was very comforting that they would all come so quickly to my aid. They must've told them I was there when they dialed 911. Here's a not-so-good shot of the parking lot as we drove away.

The best part of the whole evening was that we got 50% off our meal, AND since all the cops in a ten-mile radius were getting free IHOP coffee,I got to drive home at 110 mph!! Thanks J-Lo!!

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