In June, 2006 I dragged my friend Tyson with me out to Pomona, CA to look at some old houses. He could care less about historic homes in general, but even he was impressed by the grace of some of the amazing places we saw. We were starving by the time we hit Interstate 10 to drive home. As we were discussing what to eat I saw a Hooter's restaurant directly ahead of us on the righthand side of the freeway.

"Have you ever been to a Hooter's?" I asked.

"No, I've never been to a Hooter's." he replied.

"Let's go to Hooter's." I said as I cut across 5 lanes of traffic to get to the next exit.

Upon entering Hooter's there was no immediate indication that we had made an ill-fated decision. The hostess happened to seat us by the waitress' pantry area where Tyson could ogle the servers wearing their giant orange pantaloon shorts and shiny, flesh-colored tights. Our own waitress was a very pretty brunette with waist-length hair and a nice figure. Everything seemed fine as Tyson and I relaxed with our drinks and ordered our meal. Shortly afterwards the waitress came back and unexpectedly sat down at our table. Tyson and I abruptly stopped talking and smiled at her. She did not seem to have much to say so he and I began making tortured attempts at conversation. Somehow I ended up divulging that we had never been inside a Hooter's before.

"Oh, this is your first time?" the waitress asked. "We'll do something special for you."

I found myself vaguely hoping that the special treatment did not involve singing. Just then an old Village People song started playing at a loud volume inside the restaurant.

"Oh, no. It's time for the YMCA." the waitress said as she wrinkled her nose with genuine dismay.

Tyson and I exchanged blank looks and she hopped up from our table. Soon every server in the establishment was standing on top of a barstool performing a synchronized dance routine to the YMCA song. All their orange-clad butts gyrated above our table. Yep, our waitress was definitely the thinnest and the prettiest. Most of the patrons in the place, 95% of whom were male, stared at the waitresses with unwavering, zombie-like attention. These men were not smiling. It seemed that they were attempting to burn the images of the dancing women into their brains.

Peace reigned for a brief time after the YMCA dance ended, but then three waitresses and a manager materialized at our table. They congratulated us on our first-time visit, placed a tinfoil crown on Tyson's head, and began tying balloons into my hair. The balloons lifted 3 sections of my hair into the air and I looked like a complete idiot. I glanced across the table at Tyson who must have felt equally ridiculous in his foil crown. For some unknown reason he and I felt compelled to "be good sports" and keep our adornments attached to our heads. I have no idea why.

Our food arrived. We began eating. Someone in the room grabbed a microphone and announced that a bachelor party was present. A cheer went up as the voice promised a special treat for the bachelor who was being escorted to a makeshift stage right at that moment. All of a sudden our pretty waitress was at our table grabbing my arm and telling me that there was another surprise and I was going up on the stage. Startled, I laughed and politely resisted her as she tried to drag me from my chair. She was pulling hard and was utterly convinced that I was going to follow her. My mind had no time to make sense of it all, but I was not going up on any stage. I tried to shrug her off and jokingly pointed at Tyson who was wearing a bemused but puzzled expression underneath his foil crown.

"He'll do it." I said."You both can do it!" she exclaimed and grabbed Tyson's arm too.

She really wasn't kidding and she kept trying to jerk us towards the stage area. Finally I indicated my refusal in a tone of voice that left no room for doubt. She dropped our arms and glared at me with malice in her eyes. Then she turned on her heel and stormed off. Tyson and I stared at each other in disbelief. Right at that moment a man with a pen in his hand approached our table and asked me to sign his napkin. I turned my gaze on him. Did he think I was one of the waitresses? Was this some other weird Hooter's tradition where male customers asked all female patrons to sign their napkins? Who was this guy? Who did he think I was? Couldn't I just take the balloons out of my hair and eat my six microscopic clams? I looked at the man with puzzlement and lamely reiterated his question back to him.

"You want me to sign your napkin?" I asked."Yes, please." he said politely.

"Um..why?" I wondered aloud, not knowing what to say.

"You're the adult actress Tanya Danielle, aren't you?" he responded a bit uncertainly.

Several long moments of silence elapsed.

"No. No, I'm not." I said.

The man apologized and left. Tyson told me I had been kind of rude.

"Nobody knows who I am. I didn't know what to do." I said. I was really flustered.

"Yeah, you're right." he said after a short pause. "That was definitely weird.

"Tyson shook his head and removed his foil crown. He helped me untie the balloons from my hair and they floated up to the ceiling. We finally finished eating and waited for the waitress to return with our bill. She never came back. I left to search for her and found her slumped dejectedly over one of the tables at the bar with her chin on her hand. She agreed to bring the bill. When she dropped it off at our table she informed us with a trace of hostility that she had merely wanted us to do the hokey-pokey onstage earlier. Neither Tyson nor I had a response to that. I picked up the bill and happened to notice some text on it directing me to a website where I could fill out a customer satisfaction survey. We paid and left.

Cameraman Mike Raffone shot the pic above in 2004 during the filming of a custom video. A gentleman had sent me a Hooter's uniform to wear as wardrobe to accompany his script. I would have had much more perspective on my role if I had ever gone to a Hooter's restaurant before the shooting of the video..



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- XXOO Tanya