What happens when the lights go out.

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Darkness can harbor that which people don’t want others to see, but, as I found out, it can be more revealing than the brightest light. The power went out at Hooters last night, not just for a minute, but for 2 hours, until finally, with the emergency lights fading, there was no more waiting, we just had to leave. The scariest part wasn’t the 70 mph winds gusting through the city, or the haunting black that seemed to sweep over station square, it was the darkness of people. Approximately 3 tables just walked out on their bill, said they were going to go smoke a cigarette(which you can no longer do at hooters), or check if there was power next door, and never came back, didn’t think it necessary to pay for the drinks or food they had already consumed, focused only on what they were being denied. Luckily, I didn’t have tables at the time (it was a slow night) so I didn’t have to deal with such thoughtlessness. 

After a lot of nothingness, complete disarray, and all my coworkers and the manger chain smoking cigarettes, most people had left, either paying with the cash they had, or leaving their credit card number with the manager. It was clear that no one had any plan of action. So what is the best thing you can do in the dark? The things we can’t do in the light. For Hooters girls, that means a few things. Those 70 wings that were in the frier, but are no longer going to be served, are now fair game. The “employee salad as the only free food” rule goes out the window. Restricted quantities became readily disposable. Ranch dressing, blue cheese, celery seemed to appear out of nowhere. Of course, wings go best with beer so why not put some beer in the styrofoam cup? Does the manager care? Nope. He just wants another cigarette and to know the score of the steelers game. Now fed for, in all likelihood, the first time all day, and loosening up more with each sip (if that’s possible) from their precious polystyrene, the Hooters girls decide to liven the darkness up a little, by dancing to a portable ipod player, which just happens to be filled with a playlist of all rap and hip hop songs. There’s nothing wrong with dancing. Dancing is self expression. It makes you brave. However, some forms of dancing should be reserved for paying customers or intimate settings etc etc if you get my drift… Just like earlier that night, when a regular told me that one of my coworkers (who started right after I did and looks a little like a playboy bunny, with big boobs, bleached hair, and too much make-up), “deserves” to have her picture hung up on the restaurant wall, at that moment, watching the other girls huddle near each other, sipping on beer and showing off their most stripper-esque dance moves, I realized that while I don’t belong to the in-crowd, I have no desire to fit into that mold. I was slightly reminded of high school when one of my coworkers said “Beth’s so quiet” as I sat being non-participatory. Quiet. No one has used that word to describe me in quite some time now, quite the opposite actually. She didn’t mean quiet, as in non-sound producing, in terms of the amplitude or frequencies of my air pressure. She meant quiet in a social sense, a secluded sense. But that’s okay. Somewhere along the line, I realized that I never wanted the attention of the type of crowd who packs into a dark room, staring towards the one spotlight, like bugs on a summer night. I want the light. More than eyes focused on me, instead, cognition working to comprehend what I have to say, desiring meaning and purpose. When it is dark, I don’t blend into the blackness, consumed by emptiness. I won’t be washed out by strategically placed fluorescents. No, I make my own light.

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