Box Girl (17 page)

       
You can shave your legs without hitting your head
against the wall of the shower.

       
You can't vacuum your entire home without unplugging the vacuum.

       
Your bed doesn't have to be crammed in the corner of the room.

       
Your bed is not the “double” your parents bought for your sophomore year in college.

       
You have a dishwasher.

       
You have a washing machine.

       
Your refrigerator makes its own ice.

       
Your refrigerator has food in it.

       
You don't have to work in the box.

Signs That You Have Not Made It

Your credit card company asks if you've considered a new
line of work.

Hooters vs. The Box

When my girlfriend at the restaurant told me she used to
work at Hooters, I eyed her tiny, ninety-five-pound frame and couldn't help but notice she was lacking a key ingredient for the job.

“I know,” she said. “I don't have big hooters.” She seemed more than happy to go on. “The girls who didn't have big boobs or implants wore two padded bras on top of each other, and we put our Hooters T-shirts over that. It worked really well.”

Hold the mail. What? I couldn't believe it. It felt like learning Dolly Parton stuffed with shoulder pads.

My friend's stories from Hooters made me appreciate the restaurant where I worked. At Hooters, she said, the servers were encouraged to egg the men on. That was the point. Eat a basket of wings, drink a pitcher of beer, look at a roomful of hooters (or padded bras under T-shirts,
idiots
) and flirt with your waitress. She said Hooters girls were required to sit at each table for at least a few minutes—bat their pretty little eyes, bait the men. “That was a requirement. If we were
folding napkins or talking to each other, the manager would come over and say, ‘Go sit down with your customers.'”

Hooters girls also had to leave a cocktail napkin on each table with their name written on it and “some sort of flair” (she was a smiley-face girl). On slow days, she said, whoever had the most napkins with their names on them could go home early. “It was funny; the guys thought you were giving them your name to flirt with them, but really you just wanted to be sent home early.” Another requirement: They had to ask each table if they wanted fries, no matter what. “That's why people think Hooters girls are dumb,” she said, laughing. “Two guys would go in and order cheesecake and we'd have to ask them if they wanted fries with that.”

Every time a Hooters girl typed an order into the computer terminal, they had to print out the ticket, stand on a stool, and sling the ticket into the kitchen while yelling, “Hooters girls!” The rest of the Hooters girls would then have to stop what they were doing and say, in unison, “Oh, yeah!” There was a large Hooters Girls manual that outlined all of this. I found these details endlessly fascinating. My favorite part: In the back, there was a vending machine for the tights and socks they were required to wear. “Like a snack machine,” she said, “Except it was full of nylons and '80s scrunch socks.”

“Why the thick, shiny figure skater tights?” I asked.

“They suck everything in. Plus it makes you feel less naked. The shorts are so tiny.”

My friend said she'd immediately tell all her tables she was in college, to distinguish herself from the other girls. “Apparently if you get a boob job while working at Hooters, you can write it off as part of your job, so a lot of girls were just working there for that.” Others, she said, wanted to be Playboy Bunnies. “The Playboy people were in there recruiting a lot.”

A Hooters girl's primary job, she said, was to look good. If you came to work and your hair wasn't down or your makeup
didn't look good, you could be sent home. Hooters girls were also more than allowed to go out with the customers. “Guys would pull up in limos to pick them up,” she said. “But you couldn't be seen leaving in your Hooters outfit, so everyone zipped Juicy velour sweat suits over their uniforms and left wearing that.”

I would rather shoot myself. And I'm not talking about the Juicy Couture sweat suits. I can think of nothing worse than being required to lead on a stranger I have absolutely no interest in, especially after racing back and forth to fetch another couple rocks for his Scotch,
doll
; just a little more wasabi,
darlin'
; another napkin, mine fell on the floor,
sweetie
.

At the restaurant, some of the cocktail girls could work it. I could not. I couldn't even up-sell a dessert, let alone up-sell myself. I'd see some of the girls getting phone numbers from men who had said, “So, what else do you do? An actress, wow, what do you know? I'm a producer, I bet I could help you out.” I'm sure plenty of these men were legitimately in the business, but I was always skeptical. I couldn't bring myself to be the damsel looking to be saved by someone who may or may not have been a producer—or a sex offender. It made my skin crawl. Another waitress friend of ours, Jill, couldn't do it either, and she was a real actress. When customers would ask what else she did, she'd say, dead seriously, “Nothing.” Being a young girl in LA and
only
a waitress made people very uncomfortable. They'd smooth their napkins in their laps nervously. “Yep,” she'd say, gazing gaily at her surroundings. “This is it!”

But why, I wondered, was I okay with wearing about as many inches of material as a Hooters girl when I was inside the box? At least they are bringing stuff to eat. I don't even come with buffalo wings. I am providing absolutely no service other than being something to look at.

I think the answer lies in the two-inch thick glass. In the box, I don't have to engage. I know a wall of glass separates
me from them. I am protected in there. I don't have to interact, egg them on, flirt. I don't have to offer my name with a heart over the i. No one knows my name. I'm seen, I'm noticed, but I'm also left alone.

I Was A Box Bunny

In 1963, for her famous piece of undercover reporting, “I
Was A Playboy Bunny,” Gloria Steinem became a bunny herself, serving cocktails at The Playboy Club on East Fifty-ninth Street in Manhattan. She gave herself a new name (Marie Catherine Ochs) and a new age (four years younger than her real age, as she was beyond the bunny age limit). But, as she noted in the essay, she and Marie shared the same address, phone number, and most importantly, measurements and face. She could only mask so much.

Steinem embarked on this reporting assignment with a journal and an ad that read: “Attractive young girls can now earn $200-$300 a week at the fabulous New York Playboy Club, enjoy the glamorous and exciting aura of show business, and have the opportunity to travel to other Playboy Clubs throughout the world. Whether serving drinks, snapping pictures, or greeting guests at the door, the Playboy Club is the stage—the Bunnies are the stars.” The ad went on to say: “If you are pretty and personable, between twenty-one
and twenty-four, married or single, you probably qualify. No experience necessary.”

During her Bunny interview, Steinem was told, “Sit over there, fill out this form, and take off your coat.” The application was short: address, phone number, measurements, age, last three employers. The “Bunny Mother,” a madame of sorts named Sheralee, took several Polaroids and looked over her application. Steinem tried to give the Bunny Mother a page she had fabricated about Marie's personal history, but the Bunny Mother resisted. “For the record,” she said. “We don't like our girls to have any background. We just want you to fit the Bunny image.”

Before Steinem knew it, she was being outfitted in her Bunny uniform, and the wardrobe mistress was stuffing an entire plastic dry-cleaning bag down the top of her bust. (Other items the Bunnies used for stuffing included Kleenex, cotton balls, cut-up bunny tails, foam rubber, lamb's wool, Kotex pads, silk scarves, and gym socks.) “Just about everyone stuffs,” the wardrobe mistress told her. “And you keep your tips in there. The ‘vault' they call it.”

Like being a Box Girl, being a Bunny came with its own specific set of rules. The Bunnies could get demerits for a long list of things: wearing heels that were less than three inches, having runs in their pantyhose, wearing crooked or unmatched bunny ears, keeping an untidy bunny tail, and having underwear that shows. (Unlike Box Girls, Bunnies were probably encouraged
not
to wear underwear.) Messy hair, bad nails, or bad makeup cost them five demerits, while chewing gum or eating on the clock was ten. They were also required to react appropriately to the entertainers. If a comic was performing, then they had better laugh. For that matter, they were required to appear “gay and cheerful” at all times (“Think about something happy or funny,” they were told).

Steinem received a copy of the Playboy Club Bunny Manual—The Bunny Bible, as the Bunnies called it. The Bunny Bible suggested the following techniques for stimulating sales: “The key to selling more drinks is customer contact . . . they will respond particularly to your efforts to be friendly . . . You should make it seem that their opinions are very important . . .”

Steinem also learned, “If Bunnies are meeting boyfriends or husbands after work, they must do it at least two blocks from the club.” Playboy Club clientele were never to know the Bunnies had lives—or heaven forbid, husbands—outside the club.

The Bunny Bible also told the Bunnies they must “eye-contact” each of their guests immediately upon approaching their table. I don't think I've ever heard the phrase “eye contact” used as a verb, but the suggestiveness it takes on when repackaged as such makes me blush. To “eye-contact” someone seems a lot more X-rated than simply “making eye contact” with someone.

But, The Bunny Bible went on to firmly explain, the Bunnies were not allowed to give out their phone numbers or go on dates with the customers. Nor were they allowed to give out their last names. The Bunny Bible used the following to illustrate this point: “Men are very excited about being in the company of Elizabeth Taylor. But they know they can't paw or proposition her. The moment they felt they could become familiar with her, she would not have the aura of glamour that now surrounds her.”

Later, during the “Bunny Father Lecture”—a narrated slide-show with jazz in the background—Steinem learned that, if customers tried to “get familiar,” the Bunnies were supposed to politely reply, “Sir, you are not allowed to touch the Bunnies.” As Steinem points out, there is a problem here, a disconnect. While the women were required to “eye-contact” and pamper their customers, they were also obligated to reject them. As
soon as they seemed available, the Bunnies were apparently no longer desired.