Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined'

You own the T-shirt. You have the calendar. Now it's time to experience the legend.

Hooters Boston is exactly what you might expect it to be _ small, dirty, indistinctive, and over-hyped. The restaurant, which is a cross between a sports bar and a meat market, is located on one of those dingy streets near the FleetCenter. You know, the dark ones with nothing on them except for things like... Hooters.

Plan your excursion early in the evening so you can beat the crowd of desperate men. Or really, plan to run in, buy your calendar, and go to one of the cool bars a few streets away (see Lush 11/21).

The food, if you could call it that, paralleled that of Hotung Caf?© on a Sunday evening: wings cooked two days ago, salad dressing that congealed in the '80s, and a sundry selection of artery-clogging items. The only good thing we can say about it is that it was served promptly and that there was no nacho cheese on the menu.

Hooters is famous for its wings, and we will say, they were quite tasty. Spice levels range from mild to medium, to hot, to 911, to Three Mile Island. Unfortunately when it came to entrees, it was basically the chicken or the burger, which we couldn't tell apart.

The servers seemed like clueless but nice women who didn't want to be there. And we can't blame them.

There are basically two types of people who did want to be there: large groups of rowdy college-age but not college students and very single, very alone men who sat at the bar and bemoaned the loss of their front teeth in that hunting accident. Needless to say, we were decidedly out of place, especially considering that one lush does not have big boobs.

We thought that the beer list could salvage our otherwise fruitless pilgrimage, but we were wrong. The list contained a list of synonyms for colored tasteless water, with the exception of Pete's Wicked Ale, which is brown and only somewhat tasteless. Forget ordering a mixed drink. Just bring your flask from home, or your Tisch Library spill-proof mug filled with your favorite flavor of "hot chocolate."

The beer did help our eyes adjust to the neon orange d?©cor _ incidentally, the same color as the food. The restaurant did have spacious interior and enough TVs that you could see the game from any seat... if that's what you were there to look at.

If you do want to visit Hooters, the best thing you can do is go and make fun of it. Dress for the occasion in your best NASCAR t-shirt and ripped stonewashed jeans if you're male, or a t-shirt tied about the waist, jeans, and high heels if you're female. Assume a hick personality and see how long you can keep the waitstaff convinced that you don't attend a prestigious university.

As this is our final Traveling Lush, we would like to take this opportunity to thank the little people who made this series possible: Daniel "My eyes are squinty" Fowler, for reading it every week; our parents, for not cutting off our "school supplies" allowance; Patti Lee Klos, for her nacho cheesinator innovations; the Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity, for its constant efforts to keep us informed on Christian Science issues; and all of our friends who distract us on IM while we were writing this article... and Jon Graham too.