Why I will not go to a bar with half-nude waitresses (more than one or two dozen more times)

Head out to Woodale, and there's not much there. A theater, some overpriced restaurants, a ridiculously small amount of parking, and The Tilted Kilt, a bar trying to pass itself off as Irish the way Hooter's tries to pass itself off as Where-you-can-get-a-good-burger-while-incidentally-ogling-women.

Don't get me wrong--I've got nothing against ogling women. The waitresses at the Kilt wear, for the record, white stockings, short kilts and stomach-less white tops, and I am this close to mandating such a dress code for every outdoor summer festival in town. But even I have my limits. The Kilt, while sporting plentiful eye candy and a variety of Guinness-themed beers, just isn't doing it for me any more. I've only been there a handful of times (like ten or fifty), but like a good soldier, I keep making the half-hour drive out there to see if I can get comfortable with the ambience, the blaring jukebox, the half-tanked fratboys high-fiving each other. And I just can't do it. For reasons I can explain quite succinctly:

The waitresses act like strippers, but they're not strippers. When a scantily-clad woman sits down next to you in a place where alcohol and loud music are prevalent, starts making conversation about your pathetic life, and keeps her eye on the clock, she's either finagling for a tip, trying to elicit a request for a lap dance, or already married to you and enacting some weird role-playing fantasy you cooked up in a weekend marriage seminar. And I'm not good at pretending with stuff like this. When a waitress sat down next to me last weekend and asked how work was going, she visibly flinched when I produced a dollar bill and waved it in her face seductively. That kind of reality I can do without.



The waitresses could be trouble. I'm sure they're legal and everything, but still, young is young, and I don't want to be that Old Guy in the Bar. I'm not that old, but compared to a roomful of undergraduates, I might as well be collecting Social Security. When you can make lewd comments and get away with it, you know it's time to pack it up--only guys who could conceivably carry out such lascivious threats are taken seriously. Besides, you never know these days. The girls could be under eighteen, and I'm a man of values. I wouldn't touch them if they were a day below...twenty-one. Nor would I sit next to them, stroke their legs lightly, yank their hair or drink salted tequila off their flat, toned, tanned stomachs. Not me, sir. No chance.

They don't sell the waitress' outfits. Not that I'd buy one. Or buy one and leave it hanging in the closet. Or feign surprise when the little lady found it. Or feign surprise, get her drunk and dress her up in it. It's just a matter of principle.



There's a reputation that goes with frequenting a place like this. Guilt by association, I'd call it. To paraphrase Ed McBain, if you frequent a whorehouse with a really good magazine rack, you're not going to be known as someone with highbrow literary tastes. You're going to be known as a guy who likes a cheap piece of tail. And if you come out of the Kilt, staggering at two in the morning, they're not going to know about all the historical inaccuracies you pointed out in their menu to anyone who would listen all night ("Braveheart was Scottish, but Michael Collins was Irish and Falstaff was English. What kind of dump is this, anyway?"). They're going to call you a slightly creepy perv. And if they're right, so much the better to give them less to work with.