Dick’s

I’ve never been to a B&D sex dungeon, but I have been to Dick’s, a “restaurant” in Myrtle Beach.

A couple promised me, my wife, and a few of our friends that supper at Dick’s would be a fun and funny night. In retrospect, I blame myself for not taking into account that I knew the recommending couple had a “different” sense of humor.

We had to wait a long time to get in, which at first I thought was a testament to how good the restaurant was, but later I realized it was a screening test to establish if we were, in fact, good candidates to be submissives.

The shtick here is to make each customer the butt of some obscene joke. I don’t know about you, but I don’t especially like being an obscene joke butt. At least not in public.

Unlike at traditional restaurants, at Dick’s the wait staff’s main focus is not to courteously tend to the needs and comfort of customers. Instead, their main job is to fashion hats out of butcher paper on which they have Sharpied some specifically tailored obscenity. Our waitress stared at each one of us for a few seconds, sized us up, and then wrote some grossly obscene reflection. Then she shaped and twisted the paper into a kind of tall, crazy-looking hat and stuck it on our heads for our table mates to laugh at.

Censors have prohibited me from quoting to you exactly what was written on our hats. Mine referenced my mustache and the part it might play in a certain activity. The hat of another of our party, a male friend, was so graphic it could be characterized by Republican politicians as “locker room talk.” I can’t remember what was written about any of the women at the table. My psyche repressed that trauma—because, fortunately, I am a gentleman.

The hats weren’t conical, but the whole time I had it on, it felt like a dunce cap. And, indeed, I was a dunce for ever agreeing to come to this place. If the hat fits . . . .

“Am I just being prudish?” I wondered. But when I studied the faces of my wife and friends, I could tell they were just as uncomfortable and squirmy as I was. There was little conversation, because what could you say? “I think the sentiment on your hat is even more disgusting than the one on mine. Hahaha”? Or “Our waitress sure pegged your sexual proclivities right away”? Or “It sure is fun to wear a wacky Grand Poobah hat in a public space filled with strangers who have twisted senses of humor”?

One of our party, a sweet older woman who’d been to Dick’s before, warned us in whispers, “Be ready to give your order or the waitress will yell at you” and “Don’t drop your fork. They won’t give you another one.”

Once, when I left the table and tried to wend my way to the restroom, a waitress cut me off as she barked, “Outta my way!” The evening was filled with similar hilarious entertainment.

Then there was the food. I ordered fried shrimp, which was delivered to me on top of a paper-topped, galvanized bucket. Only 6 smallish shrimp, but I figured the bucket must be filled with french fries since why else would there be a bucket instead of a small plate. But, no, the pail was empty. After thrusting our feed buckets in front of us, the waitress gruffly asked, “Do you want your salads?” Now, these salads were part of what we ordered and something we were paying for, so I was surprised we were being asked if we wanted them. Why hadn’t she also asked if I actually wanted the 6 measly shrimp in front of me?

I can’t fathom why Dick’s bothers with an apostrophe.

Their slogan is “We put the FU in fun.” But it should be “We put the FU in awful.”

Or maybe, to save space, why not just simply go with—“FU”?

Bill Spencer is author of Uranus Is Always Funny: Short Essays to Make You Laugh.