Escaping Reality

Chapter 27: Sunburnt N' Stuffed

We walked up to the restaurant front like we were a traveling sports team. Dressed haphazardly, grumbling stomachs, and excessive amounts of gibberish shouting. We were greeted by a stunningly attractive hostess and suddenly I saw why Jason liked this place so much. As we were led inside I realized it was basically Hooters for seafood. All the workers seemed to be young attractive females wearing tight shirts that boasted "world's best seafood". I bet I mumbled under my breath.

We were seated on the second story patio that overlooked the ocean. At that point, it probably didn't matter what we ate it was going to taste good with a view like this. After asking the guys what they recommended I ended up ordering the snow crab basket, it looked delicious and was supposed to feed two so I was in for a feast. We didn't say much until the food came, we didn't have the energy to, we all just sort of sat there on our phone scrolling through Twitter, letting out the occasional chuckle or complaint.

The food finally came. The girl who was carrying our food couldn't have weighed more than 100 pounds but somehow managed to carry all six of our meals, impressive I thought. As soon as the food hit the table it was good as gone. The average table to mouth time had to of been in the single-digit seconds.

My snow crab basket carried a pound of crab, a couple of corn cobs, some andouille sausage, and some small potato halves. All that I could think of is the scene from "What About Bob" where Bob is eating corn on the cob while moaning "mmmmmmmmmmmm" in an obsessive manner.

I grabbed a crab leg and broke it open. The meat slid out, it was almost inappropriate how easily it fell out of its shell. I drowned it in butter before stuffing my face. The soft butter-soaked flesh was literal heaven on earth, heaven in my mouth actually. The corn and potatoes were nice compliments and perfectly seasoned. The sausage was interesting, I had never really eaten it with seafood but somehow it worked. Maybe it was because I was starving, sunburned, and a little buzzed but it was some of the best crab I had. Ever. Those girls' shirts didn't lie I thought.

The rest of the guys seemed to equally enjoy their meals. They had all gotten different variations of crab baskets except for Nico. Nico ordered Mac and Cheese. At a restaurant known for its seafood. It felt downright disrespectful but I couldn't knock the man for enjoying his mac and cheese, it did look astounding.

I was on cloud nine until I got the bill. Thirty-five freakin dollars. Oh well, it was vacation and for these guys that was probably a cheap meal, I paid quickly and tipped generously. That's when I thought of the Dad joke my dad had used at Hooters a few years back.

"Better tip these girls well boys. They could use the money to buy some better-fitting shirts." I said wearing a proud smile.

The guys found it amusing and were persistent in getting me to use it on the waitress. If it wasn't for Lola I probably would have folded to the peer pressure. However, she sort of scared me at times and it would be an awkward conversation if my cringe dad joke made its way back to her. We ended up convincing Hamilton to write his phone number down on the tab. After all, he hadn't won a single challenge the entire day so it was only fair.

We left the restaurant but hung around outside trying to catch a glimpse of the waitresses' response to Hamilton's phone number. We huddled around each other trying to inconspicuously peer through a single window. Eventually, she came back to the table and when we saw her crack a smile we knew that she had seen his message. She picked it up before crumpling it up along with the other spare receipt copies.

The rejection sent our group into a fit of excessive jumping and shouting. We didn't look but I wouldn't be surprised if our waitress heard us from inside. We gently pushed Hamilton around, giving him a tough time.

"Maybe next time man," I offered.

"She was too old for you anyway," Nico followed up.

"Nah dude, you're just UGLY," Charles concluded amused with himself.

Hunched over in fits of laugher we walked back to the car, sunburnt and stuffed.