“I was in college, nursing school to be exact. I worked part-time waitressing and bartending at our local Hooters for the last two years of college making pretty good cash. I worked my butt off at school and at work. One fine Saturday night, in came one of my last tables of the night. It was four pretty big dudes. As it turns out, they were WWF wrestlers (now WWE) and they had just performed nearby in Hershey, PA. I played dumb, because I do that sometimes in these situations, but I was polite, friendly, and chatty as normal.
At some point, they asked me, ‘Don’t you know who we are?’
My response was, ‘Are you guys wrestlers or something?”
They confirmed and told me more, of course. They ate, they drank, and we chatted.
Once they were fat and happy, it was time for the bill. The one fella looked at me, serious as a heart attack, and said, ‘Aren’t we going to get a discount? We are kind of famous, you know.’
Wrong thing to say to a sleep-deprived nursing student in little orange shorts at the end of a busy Saturday shift.
My response was, ‘I didn’t even know your names until you walked in here. I think the whole world knows who Hooters girls are and everyone knows nurses save lives. Maybe you should buy me dinner instead.’
Smile. Hold. I am not sure if they thought I was terribly cute, but they gave me the cash for the bill. I kept their change, they didn’t ask for back, or I am not sure if I would have gotten a tip.
After they paid, they stayed a bit. At some point, one of them went to use the men’s room. He walked by this older gentleman at the bar and promptly kicked his bar stool out from under him and the man hit the ground. I was waiting for my manager to react, but he didn’t. I helped the customer up who was okay.
Then I got in Saturn’s face, poking him in the chest, ‘What the heck is your problem?’
His answer, ‘He looked at me.’
My response, ‘Well, now I am looking at you and I am considering calling the police because you just assaulted my customer.’
I reminded him he was on my turf and not in the wrestling ring. I informed him little old me (5’2″ and maybe 110 lbs at the time) wasn’t going to put up with his nonsense and neither was my weak manager (who was hiding in his office). He was full of apologies and changed his tune pretty quickly, thankfully.
These guys were awful people.”
