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Guest Essay

By Peter Rothpletz

Mr. Rothpletz is a writer.

It was an annual tradition. Every Thanksgiving, I would fly down to Florida before the rest of the family. My grandfather would pick me up at the airport. We’d talk about politics, my soccer season and changes to Fox News’s prime-time lineup. But this particular trip, I was 14, maybe 15, and in ways I could not yet name, it was becoming apparent that I was not like most of the boys I grew up with. My grandfather pulled off a sun-bleached stretch of highway to take me somewhere new: Hooters.

Our waitress was a tall, brassy blonde — a caricature of the caricature that is a Hooters waitress. She was in her late 20s with a deep yet indistinct Southern accent, and I could tell she clocked me almost immediately. Who knows if it was how I held myself or how my voice quivered or how my eyes slid away from hers. But later in the meal, when my grandfather........

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