Know what I hate about lesbian restaurants?

The busboys.

Because they're always adorable. And you look at them with their casual masculinity and their effortless beauty ... and then you start to wonder. Are they the dewily handsome young gay boys they appear to be? Or are they just handsomely dewy young lesbians? And then you think oh my god I just had an impure thought about a girl. And if the gay tribunal finds out they fine you three show tunes. And they sometimes send you for reparative therapy with Ted Haggard ... after which you don't want to have impure thoughts about anybody. That man is human libido repellent.

But let's not think about that right now. Let's think about the buttery-soft peppercorn filet I had tonight. It was so delicious and so perfectly prepared it was almost sinful. And seeing how lesbians are an abomination before the lord, I see exactly how my filet became so sinfully good.

But! Before I get slapped with some kind of false-advertising lawsuit, let me clarify what I mean by a lesbian restaurant: It's a restaurant overflowing with—but not to my knowledge owned or managed by—lesbians. We ate at Deleece tonight, and if it's not a lesbian-run establishment, it's at least a lesbian showroom. My gaydar is not all that reliable, but even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Haram!) couldn't pull off his there-are-no-lesbians-here shtick in its sea of cargo pants and sensible haircuts.

I've eaten at three lesbiany (by my definition) restaurants in Chicago—Deleece, Tomboy and The Room, which is no longer with us—and I can say three things about them with absolute certainty. And since I am the keeper of all empirical truth, you know they're univeral realities: Lesbian restaurants always have awesome food. Lesbian restaurants always have awesome service. And lesbian restaurants always have terrible acoustics. What is it with lesbians and their brick walls and their tin ceilings? It's always a challenge having a conversation in a lesbian restaurant because you can't hear a damn thing over all the yummy sounds coming out of the patrons and bouncing off all the hard surfaces. Would it kill these women to have some lovely sound-deadening fabric on the walls? Or to issue us all earplugs when we walk in?

Or to label their busboys so we know if it's safe to lust after them?