Four laughing Fountain Valley High School students entered a Denny's to eat breakfast on the morning of July 3, but the waiter wasn't amused.
One of the teens–a lanky, blond-haired kid wearing a t-shirt and swimming trunks–had nothing on his feet.
“No shoes,” the waiter said firmly. “No service.”
The group of teens argued, moaned and tossed out a few mild cuss words, but after about 90 seconds left the restaurant.
Who thought American youth would give up so easily?
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Five minutes later, the boys re-entered the Denny's, stopped in the lobby and quietly waited to be seated.
The waiter returned, looked at the blond-haired kid's feet, rolled his eyes and shook his head.
The kid had wrapped two different blue colored beach towels around his feet.
The group burst out laughing.
“Well, I get credit for creativity, right?” the kid asked.
It looked like another tense showdown when one of the other high school kids blurted out, “Towel shoes are shoes!”
The waiter's stern face broke into a smile and he agreed to seat them.
The shoe-less kid threw his arms up in victory and dramatically shuffled his towel-wrapped feet like he was snow skiing to the table.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.