(This is why you never sit in a booth)
~-~-~-~-~-~

As a humor columnist, some of my best “ideas” come from readers like you who point me to weird online articles or odd items in the news. I’ll read the article, shake my head for a while in disbelief, get all my door locks changed, and scribble off the week’s column.

This week, I was sent one such news story via a Google link, and I was hooked in less than ten words: “It’s unclear when the woman took off her clothes…”

It gets better.

“It’s unclear when the woman took off her clothes, but when the police arrived at the Waffle House…”

As a humor columnist, some weeks are easier than others.

The heart of the story is this: a crowd of completely innocent people dining at a Georgia Waffle House were attacked by a naked woman, which is a fairly unusual thing to have happen during breakfast, even in Georgia. According to the (eventual) police report, the chilly woman did about twenty very strange things while in the diner, which may be a new world’s record for someone who’s not in the NBA, or a member of Congress.

The nude perp incident took place in cozy little Kennesaw, Georgia (population: 32,000), which is located near Atlanta (population: about 485 trillion, and that’s just the people in front of me on the 285 freeway). Of course, being situated near Atlanta, there were plenty of reporters available to cover the story – and based on the stories they filed, I think reporters must get paid for how many times they can work in the word “allegedly.”

On the night of the incident, allegedly around 10:30, witnesses say the alleged woman arrived at the Waffle House with what appeared to be an alleged man. But then the man left, possibly because he’d seen her naked before. The woman then started walking around the diner preaching at the customers. When one of the customers got up to pay and leave, he said the ad lib preacher tried to stop him by wrapping her not-yet-naked alleged arms around him “like a bear hug.” The man managed to get away, but refused to leave the preacher a tip.

Shortly thereafter, for unknown reasons, the nudist punched a woman diner, breaking her alleged nose, then threw a plate at her, which missed the woman but failed to miss a nearby window. All this late-night exercise must’ve gotten the imbued attacker fired up, because somewhere inside her soon-to-be-arrested head, something snapped.

And that’s when the nakedness began.

According to one news report, “the accused stripped off all her clothes in front of the staff and patrons during a suspected excited delirium state.” (Suspected is the go-to word reporters use once they’ve reached their alleged quota.) And from that moment on, until the police showed up, it was madness – absolutely nobody in the diner was able to get their coffee topped off. The rampaging woman ran around the restaurant, yelling, throwing platters at the other patrons, and making rude remarks about bacon.

At some point, somebody called the cops, maybe because the nose-breaking nudist started hogging all the alleged jelly packets. Sadly, however, the arrival of Kennesaw’s finest didn’t tame the beast.

“The woman then allegedly threw plates at police while screaming incoherently.”

I love that. A selective “allegedly.” Note that the woman was not allegedly screaming incoherently. She was simply screaming incoherently, screaming without reporters needing to hedge their bets, based on whatever obscure legal technicality determines these things.

But the woman allegedly threw plates. Because we can’t be sure it was the woman throwing the plates. The plates may have thrown themselves. Maybe the plates were in a allegedly excited delirium state.

Ultimately, the woman was arrested and charged with simple battery, aggravated battery, assault, obstruction of officers, indecent exposure, and impersonating Sean Penn.

And that brings us back to the sentence that started it all:

“It’s unclear when the woman took off her clothes, but when the police arrived at the Waffle House, they said they saw a naked woman on her knees blocking a man inside his booth.”

Think about that. The poor guy was trapped in his seat by a nude woman with bad aim.

Remember that the next time a waitress asks you “booth or table?”