Waffle House
Ed spent a lot of time at the Waffle House in Bloomington, Indiana, when he was an undergrad. He’s got a theory that the place is a portal to bizarro world, and he’s got personal experience to back it up. To wit:
Incident 1
Ed’s sitting at Waffle House, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. He’s minding his own business, thinking about classes he’s not attending, when he hears a voice say “hey!” Ed looks around, and sees a guy at another booth nearby. Ed replies, “Yeah, man?” and the guy says “I’m a werewolf.” Now, Ed’s working on his psychology degree at this point, and it’s an opportunity he can’t pass up. He asks the guy something like “Are you comfortable being a werewolf? Do you feel that you can self-actualize as a werewolf?” The guy then offered to sell Ed some opium suppositories.
Incident 2
Ed’s sitting at Waffle House, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. Different booth this time. He’s minding his own business when a cop walks in. The officer puts his hand on his gun, walks up to Ed, and asks for his name. Ed answers politely and inquires as to why the officer asked. “We’re looking for someone who looks like you,” the officer says. “A lot like you.” Then, the officer leaves.
Incident 3
Ed’s sitting at Waffle House, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. Yet another booth. He’s minding his own business, thinking about girls he’s not sleeping with. A cute waitress approaches him and says “Your dad’s here.” Ed’s a little confused at this point, because his dad hadn’t called to say he was planning to visit, and how would the waitress know what he looked like anyway? Trying to be helpful, the waitress points to a man at another table. “He’s right there.” Ed looks over and sees himself at fifty.
Alisa says she had a similarly weird experience during her tenure at IU. She was sitting in the restaurant that’s now Denny’s when a man started a conversation by telling her that he’d been been bitten by a vampire at Griffey Lake. Of course, by the time I got to IU, Griffey Lake was werewolf territory. Apparently the opium suppository business was quite lucrative.
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June 24th, 2005 at 11:59 am
Uh, I really think I’m glad that I never go there when I’m in Bloomington.
June 27th, 2005 at 5:52 pm
Freaky!
June 30th, 2005 at 5:56 pm
Road trip! Let’s all go down to Bloomington for brunch some time and you and Ed can give spouse and I a tour of all your old haunts
July 1st, 2005 at 7:18 am
Maybe all of them *except* Griffey Lake.
September 7th, 2005 at 12:25 am
Waffle Houses are magnets for strange occurrences. Case in point: once I saw a wedding party come to a Waffle House, apparently after a reception. They put several quarters in the juke box, selected some tunes, and started dancing. Patrons either stared or joined it. To top it off it was after midnight when all this was happening. Craziness.
April 10th, 2006 at 8:32 am
[...] Now, my foster cat’s daddy laughed at this story, and then told me that he thinks Minx doesn’t even know he’s got a tail. I disagree; I think that Minx knows he has a tail, but doesn’t care, as he’ll let it fall any old where…such as Ed’s morning coffee. What’s really bad, though, is what happened Saturday morning. Ed was drinking his coffee and minding his business (almost as if he were back at the Waffle House in Bloomington), when the cat came up to him, meowing for attention and climbing the couch. The cat climbed around for a bit and got the petting he was looking for, and then jumped down to go about his kitty business. As he sauntered off, Ed noticed that the cat’s rear end was wet…and the only nearby source of liquid was (you guessed it) Ed’s cup of morning coffee. [...]