The ever famous prison break. If there is one scenario that has been omnipresent in art and real life, its escaping from incarceration. There’s something exhilarating and dangerous about the set-up. An inmate or group of them manage to break out from under watch and guard to become fugitives from justice! What manner of adventures could they go on, what exotic locations could they wind up at? They could try to cross an international border or the threshold of the uh, the International House of Pancakes…?
As absurdly ridiculous as it may seem, an IHOP in Hampton VA, briefly became the International House of Prisoners when two escaped inmates made their way to the restaurant. The two men, Arley Vaughn Nemo and John Michael Garza had managed to chip their way through a wall in their cell using tools crafted from a toothbrush and a metal object. This only got them so far though, far enough to get to the rebar in the wall, which then provided more instrumentation to orchestrate their escape. Once outside the cell, they climbed the exterior walls and made a run for it.
The jail they escaped from in Newport News, VA is only about seven and a half miles away from the IHOP in question, which begs a lot of questions. Firstly, is the IHOP really THAT good that you’re going to make it a priority stop on your escape from prison? And even if you are really hankering for pancakes with multiple kinds of syrup, wouldn’t it be prudent to try and go a bit further than nary eight miles out from the prison you broke out of?
There’s a conversation just made for a satirical screenplay:
Arley: Can’t believe we got out, man. I can’t believe we did it!
John: I know, right! And there’s an IHOP literally like, 7 miles from here!
Arley: …What?
Reports do not indicate that anyone was hurt during the breakout, subsequent escape, and recapture, which is the best anyone can hope for in a situation like this. There’s also a lack of reports about what the two men ordered while at the IHOP. Here’s hoping it was something worthwhile before the odds got (short)stacked against them.
