The Way of the Waffle

You ever wonder why you never used a Waffle house bathroom? Oh sure, you say, “I’ve used one, don't be ridiculous, and stop following me back to my table,” Sorry, I just have to tell you, that you’re wrong. Sure, you definitely have gone into the bathrooms at a Waffle house, you brave soul. But have you ever thought about what it looked like inside? Go ahead, tell me now. Are the walls yellow? No not that yellow, I mean painted yellow. Like the sign- did you know the walls in a Waffle House bathroom are yellow with accents of white and black?

No you didn’t because I’m here to reveal the truth. You can’t recall that because you’ve never remembered going into a Waffle house bathroom. All those memories you have right now? They are a bathroom that is not in your house- unless you have some weird fascination with making your home bathroom look public. I shouldn’t say weird, people should decorate their bathrooms how they please. I myself love decorating the back of my toilet with all my toilet paper. It’s as glorious as it sounds. I simply take all the toilet paper out of the plastic when I get home, and stack them together, until I’ve made a large tower. It’s functional and practical too. I sit there once it is all done and lean back and lay my head against the tower, ever so daintily. With my head cushioned, I conduct my business in the utmost comfort and leisure.

It’s too bad comfort and leisure do not await people in a Waffle House. In fact, I’m pretty sure the implanted memories someone thinks they have are the comfort and leisure. I think after what I’ve learned, I would prefer it. When I tell you, don’t go and immediately open your local waffle bathroom door, because you need a key first. Without a key, you’ll get lost. You’ll end up passing through the tunnels of time and space, and spending so much time in whatever opening you find, only to spend an ungodly amount of time getting back to your home, and having your memory wiped.

Yes, I said it. Waffle Houses are fast travel locations. Okay, I went really fast there for those who don’t play video games. But to sum it up: All Waffle Houses have a tunnel system in them that you can traverse back and forth.

That’s why there’s so many!

But, its all for not. Without a key, your mind goes away from your body, and your body gets tossed from one location to the next. It’ll eventually come back, because of the absence of time inside. The time it returns varies. Without a key to guide you, it will not know where to go, and without your mind, your body cannot physically leave. Thus, it bounces from House to House until it lands back with your mind at the start. You’re back where you were, you still have to use the bathroom, but you don’t realize it until much later. That’s why you have to go so bad when you get home. And this secret group laughs at you for thinking it was bad food!

So this group, they made the passages, and they made special keys that allow them to walk through them at their leisure, and even make a space where they hang out. What do they do there? The usual, make more tunnels, refine their matrix, laugh at the people who get stuck in the tunnels, talk about how they’re so much smarter than the rest of the people of the world, sometimes go on heists, but mainly dwell outside of the natural law. They can’t stay there long, probably about an hour or two depending on their key.

Oh right, the key. I forgot to mention them. They’re pretty much the whole, uh... key to the operation.

See, the keys aren’t something you carry in your pocket — they live in the bathrooms themselves. Now hang on, because it’s about to get weird in the worst kind of way. The Waffle Houses? They’re the system. The bathrooms? They’re the keys. And the guys — the ones who found all this out — they only did it because they got lucky with a decommissioned Waffle House. A dead one. Power out, no staff, no music on the jukebox.

They were screwing around one night, maybe had a few hash browns too many, and had a buddy over from college. That guy was an engineer. Or a conspiracy theorist. Or both. Either way, he cracked the code — not the math, not the logic, but the pattern. The building itself is what makes the tunnels function — take it away, and the network collapses. But the bathrooms live on.

Yes, live.

The tiles? They regenerate. Exact same ceramic, exact same coat of that weird, unnerving yellow. But deep inside? That’s where the real code is. Not digital. Not magical. Something else. Something the wall knows. Pull a tile off the wall and it doesn’t scream. It just waits. And then it grows another. Here’s where it gets wild: if you pry off a tile and hold it — just one — the wall recognizes you. It still thinks you’re part of the room. And that means the system doesn’t boot you. No mind-body split. No bouncing across the Waffleverse like a forgotten sock in a laundromat.

The catch?

The tile degrades.

You’ve got maybe two, three hours tops before it turns to dust in your hand. Then you’re meat in the wind again, hoping you land in a booth and not beneath the fryer.

You can travel to any Waffle house in the world and cover thousands upon thousands of miles in two to three hours. Oh, I want to see what’s happening in California, but I’m over here in Georgia. Zing! One trip later, and you’re slightly disappointed because they only go as far as Arizona.

I hear the boys are trying to get invested in Waffle House stock. With their influence, they might be crazy enough to start making oddly shaped Waffle Houses to fit cars through. There’s no telling what they’re thinking.

Although, maybe it is easy to tell. You see, it’s been ten years since they discovered this. And they, including the egghead from college, have only ever knocked over a few GameStop stores, and Advanced Auto-parts. No banks, no Apple stores, not even a Starbucks. They seem pretty content doing petty crimes, but spending as much time in the tunnels as much as possible. They did discover how to bring in a broken wall and keep regenerating tiles for themselves. They recently have been hitting up the same damaged Houses and breaking them. It seems they don’t want anyone else to get in on what they have.

It’s a little too late for that though. Because someone has caught on to them. About two years into it, when they were getting bold and a wild story about four guys taking a bunch of games and toys from a small GameStop, and then running to the Waffle House right behind it, and vanishing. That news still circulates with new theories to this day.

But it was also that same day, my brother came home, and was beaming with excitement. He wouldn’t tell mom or dad. He definitely didn’t tell me. All I know is, there was a new game he wanted, and was talking about it for weeks. Then one day, he wasn’t. He was in his room after that, just playing games, and super giggly. I snuck in late at night and found the game he was talking about! I knew he didn’t buy it. We don’t have an allowance, and he doesn’t have a job. I asked my mom if she randomly had any cash from her purse missing. She said no, and that it’s all tap-to-pay now.

I asked my dad if my brother Frank earned money for a game. He said no, and sighed. I spent the next week secretly interviewing his friends, or listening in on conversations just to see if there was any other answer to this puzzle. And then one day it all made sense. I couldn’t deny it anymore, when Frank had a yellow sticking out of his pocket as he left the house. It wasn’t apparent then, but it was weird enough for me to follow him. I discovered the horrible truth that day.

And that is why we have to come to why I’m writing this all down. Frank has discovered my sleuth work. He also knows that I can travel the tunnels like him because I’ve been practicing. He and his group are coming for me. It’s likely we will be chasing and running around the tunnels for some time. It’s up to me to expose them for their heinous deeds, but more than that. It’s time we discovered why the Waffle House enterprise exists, and why they have a useful but secretive travel system. I’m ending this with a message to my parents:

Frank stole a video game!