escape artist

    This weekend, I joined a couple friends in a late-night trip to I-Hop. We were that bored. I remember when the idea of jumping into a car with a group of people and cruisin' down 19th to I-Hop at midnight seemed awesome, now it just makes me depressed because I realize I have to turn to a 24 hour pancake house for a good time.

    I wasn't too into the plan, but my friend Chris really wanted crepes so we just had to go. I mentally decided that I'd just order some ice cream or something.

    So we get to I-Hop, noticing we were four of five people in the entire restaurant. I requested a window booth and things were going fine despite the intense B.O. scent lingering behind our waitress. We ordered a carafe of coffee because that's what college kids do. Upon its arrival, we immediately noticed the odd hue of our chosen beverage. The taste matched the color: burnt. Burnt and chewy. Despite mixing in two creamer cups and a packet of Splenda!, there was no masking the flavor. A little bummed, I pushed my mug away.

   Ms. I-Choose-Not-To-Wear-Deodorant-Despite-Having-A-Service-Job came back to take our orders. Chris promptly ordered his crepes, my boyfriend ordered chicken strips (?), while the other female and I ordered a dish of ice cream. The next thing that happened, I never saw coming.

Uh, you're out of ice cream? Does that even happen?

    By this point, I was obviously completely turned-off by the entire I-Hop experience. I began stirring my "coffee" (if that's what you want to call it), absentmindedly dreaming about delicious bowls of ice cream, when an ant crawled out of the syrup basket. Gross.

    I pointed it out to my gal pal across the booth from me and she immediately picked up the Strawberry Syrup dispenser and began dripping the sticky pink stuff on top of our visitor. I know, I know, we're going to hell. But it was crazy! Ants are so strong; the little guy managed to heave himself across the table, trailing syrup behind him!

We all watched in silence, mentally urging him on. When it looked as if he might be seeing the light, my friend had the heart to drip water on him in hopes of washing the pink goop off. Ant (I'm just going to call him that from now on; yes, I'm assuming it was a "him") seemed to be in shock. At about this time, our fine-smelling waitress reappeared to deliver the crepes and chicken strips. We methodically hid Ant behind a empty coffee creamer cup.

    By this time, Ant was on his last leg (literally, he lost a couple in the goop). My friend the ant-torturer took the liberty of putting Ant out of his misery by using a nearby napkin. We were sad that our little soldier didn't make it. The napkin was set at the edge of the table.

    After Chris finished his crepes and my boyfriend demolished his chicken strips, we remembered Ant and decided to give him a proper burial (putting the napkin on one of the empty plates to be transported to the garbage). But, alas! Ant was gone!

    We looked high and low for him but he literally disappeared. We came to the conclusion that he must have been playing dead, and that he snuck away when we were distracted. He must have been Super Ant because he somehow had the strength to climb off the sticky napkin despite only having two remaining appendages.

    We all agreed that we hoped Ant made it back to his family in order to tell his tale. I'm sure he's going to be some sort of community hero now.