Walking into P. F. Chang’s I noticed several police cars parked in the lot. “What’s that about?” I asked my partner, whose brother is a cop in New Jersey. “Generally it means really good food,” he said. “But we’re at P.F. Chang’s,” I reminded him.
He ignored me, and we both forgot about the cops because we had caught sight of a Hummer limousine that was the length of a Greyhound bus. “Someone’s having a party,” I said, and my partner nodded, speechless.
Although it was Thursday, the restaurant was crowded and exceedingly noisy. The source of the noise was soon apparent to us: in the center of the room a group of 10 women were having a birthday party. Instinct told me they belonged to the Hummer.
Judging from the dozens of balloons in evidence bearing slogans like “50 is the new 30!” and “Happy Birthday Janice!” we surmised that it was a birthday party. Observing the pie-eyed woman with the tiara allowed us to identify Janice.
One look at the 10 women at table and we instantly knew they lived in Coral Ridge; in Fort Lauderdale, a table of ten 40 and 50 years olds with not a gray hair or a crow’s foot in sight can mean nothing else. To bolster the argument, 9 of the 10 women were the exact shade of blonde; the tenth was a surly looking brunette, but no one was talking to her anyway.
These ten women were drinking at a furious pace and, because they were ordering their drinks one at a time, they were making the waiter crazy. I know this because he was our waiter too. “I don’t mean to ignore you,” he said, “but those women are making me crazy.” As the evening wore on, and the party switched into higher gear, the women transitioned from making mildly suggestive remarks to the waiter to making comments that, in the workplace, would get them sued for harassment.
By the time the birthday girl grabbed the waiter’s backside, an unexpected maneuver that almost required someone to peel him off the ceiling, he had a tight, pained little smile on his face; I had seen that identical expression on the face of a waitress at Hooters serving a table of drunken, middle-aged ex-frat boys. “Cougars,” he muttered to us when he brought us our food, “they really believe that every twenty-something guy wants a forty-something girlfriend.”
By this time two of the cops, having finished their dinner, were walking out of the restaurant. Janice signaled them to come over. Mystified, the cops approached the table. Janice was instantly on her feet and began an awkward little bump and grind on the younger cop’s thigh. “Mr. Officer,” she cooed, “are you here to dance for me? Will you strip for my birthday?” Janice apparently did not notice that these were real cop. With badges. And guns. “Janice,” said the Brunette through clenched teeth, “we did not hire a stripper for you!” But Janice kept gyrating. The other party girls cheered her on. The diners immediately adjacent, including us, were staring with our mouths open.
“Have you heard of disorderly conduct?” said the young cop in a voice he had to have learned at the Academy. “Are you driving tonight, ma’am?” said the older cop, who looked miffed because no one had asked him to strip. Janice removed her tiara. “We have a limo,” she murmured meekly. The cops began to walk away, but the young one turned around again. “And stop groping the waiter,” he said; the sudden, spontaneous applause in the restaurant had nothing to do with birthday wishes