The Joys of Bartending VI

Sometimes so many things happen that I have a tough time deciding exactly what to write about.  I will attempt to share some highlights with you.  We could probably call some of them lowlights.

The other night a woman was on a roll with some stories and there I was looking around for a way to record or write down everything she was saying.  I thought it would be sort of rude if I would have said “hold that thought, I’ve got to write this down”, so I sat back and attempted to file away all the crazy stuff that she was saying.  I doubt I can remember it all but here’s a few things:

“It’s okay that I smoke and my kids don’t know about it, right?  I mean, I’ve never actually had weed in front of them….well, one time I had a quarter pound of it duct taped under my bed….but they didn’t know it was there so I think that’s okay, plus, it never happened again.”

“I could move on the res with my cousins I suppose but I couldn’t go without a couple of potato guns, I mean, a tennis ball won’t kill anyone, right?  I’m related to them all but that doesn’t mean I have to like them.”

“I’m having a shot, I don’t care what kind of medication I’m on.  If I wake up in the morning and don’t know where I’m at then I guess that’s what happens but I really need a shot right now.”

“It’s really weird talking to my mom at this age.  It’s like we’re the same age or something.”

Her questions were completely rhetorical because she certainly didn’t want any answers from me so I just smiled and nodded as any good bartender would do.  I could have also typed that as one long sentence because she barely took a breath between any of it.

I did manage to make notes on a woman that was in one Saturday afternoon who was talking about her wedding…..

“We’re going to get married here and you’re going to be my bartender.  I’ll tell everyone no less than $5 tips at a time because that’s how I roll.  I’m paying for the kegs and the food.  My girls will do the food….hams and turkeys….good food.  We’re fat girls, we like to eat, none of this skinny girl shit.  His sisters are skinny bitches.”

I then asked her when the wedding would take place…..her answer……”whenever he asks me, in the next month or two.”  She then proceeded to play their wedding music over and over again on the jukebox.  I was privy to some sort of dance I would have rather not witnessed.

After the dancing he told her he wanted to play pool.  She said “I can’t play pool, you know I can’t play pool because I have a glass eye.”  Upon saying that she promptly poked herself in her glass eye.  Thank goodness he didn’t ask her to brush her teeth, she was a little light in the tooth department and I would have hated if she stuck her finger anywhere to point that out.

One of my regulars was in a few Saturdays ago and he had a styrofoam coffee cup on the bar.  I said hi when I walked by and he said “hey, do you want to see my rats?”  I promptly said “NO”.  He had a pile of dead baby rats in the cup that he had found in a refrigerator somewhere.  All I could do was shake my head and force myself not to look in the cup.  A little later he said “move away with me to Colorado and we’ll go down the river together”.  I said “one of us won’t make it to the end of the river alive”.  He knew exactly what I meant and he still brings it up to this day.

Very recently a few friends came in for a couple of drinks and a visit.  During their visit two of my other friends showed up and one had clearly indulged in several adult beverages, this particular lady is a hugger on a regular day and a super hugger on a day with beverages.  I introduced everyone and conversations flowed easily.

When the hugger was leaving she promptly said “nice to meet you and I’m a hugger so no handshakes”.  I immediately had to turn away from the scene as one of my friends is clearly not a hugger but he indulged.  This woman is not only a hugger but she’s a long hugger.  The whole scene was pretty hilarious.  I’m sure you’ve seen it before….the hugger and the stiff as a board non-hugger in an embrace.  On her way to the door she announced she was going to do the Irish jig.  She did.  Her sober significant other did not laugh near as hard as the rest of us did.

Closing up at 2:00 AM I heard a horrible noise coming from the parking lot.  I looked out the window and saw two women standing outside of what was left of their car.  One end of the back bumper was hanging on by a thread and the other end was dragging on the ground.  I assumed that was the cause of the noise.  I noticed the back window was plastic and duct taped on and every piece of trim was missing on the car.  As I walked outside I noticed the front bumper was also dragging on the ground.  They were screaming at each other and at some people who had gathered around the scene.  I have no idea what they were saying because I could only understand a few curse words.  After a couple of minutes they got in the car and drove away.  Yes, they drove away, sparks flying and earth shattering noises following behind.  I have no idea how far they made it because I chose to drive the other way.

A couple weeks ago, a very intoxicated woman was at the bar for several hours.  She was well-behaved for the most part and at one point she asked if I had any contact solution, which I did.  She was having trouble with her contact (I don’t think it was the contact myself but hey) and wanted to soak it for a bit.  I put it in a plastic cup to soak and she went back to gambling.  About two hours later she was yelling and swearing so I asked her what the problem was.  She said “I lost my contact!”  I said “you were supposed to leave it in the cup”.  She said “I did but I wanted to put it back in my eye”.  We looked and looked for the contact and then looked some more, I even broke out the flashlight and was crawling on the floor.  I finally gave up and said “it’s gone, I have no idea what happened to it”.

After about three more hours she yelled “I found it!”  I went over to her and she had the top of a beer can in her hand, squinting at it with her ‘good eye’.  I said “you can’t put that in your eye, it’s a beer can top”.  She had a shocked look on her face and asked “are you sure?”  Well, I wasn’t about to state the obvious that I hadn’t put in an eight hour shift of drinking so I said “I’m sure”.  She looked down at the floor and said “oh, but there it is”.  She bent over and picked something up from in front of the chair next to her and sure enough, it was her contact.  I took it from her, slathered it with contact solution for a few minutes, looked at her and said “can I put it in for you?”  She pried open her eye so I put it in.  She blinked once, hugged me and said “I can see better out of this one than my other one now!”.  Enough said, I went back to work shaking my head and she sat down to go back to gambling.

This morning a guy came in and ordered a tap beer.  I said “what’s going on today?” because it was 10:00 AM, he’s not one of the regulars and he was having a beer so I figured something was up.  He said “I called in sick for the first time in three years today because I’m hungover”.  I said “oh no, that’s not good”.  He replied with “well, I actually went to work but decided to leave after I blew a .12 in my buddies car breathalyzer”.  Then he added “the strip club was just too much for me last night”.  I didn’t ask any more questions because I was afraid of the answer.  I really wanted to say “by all means, why not start drinking again” but it was too early to have that conversation.

Tonight a woman said “two years ago I planned my wedding for September of 2013 and now I have a wedding planned and no boyfriend”.  I was dumb and said “what happened to him?”  She said “oh, there never was one, I just thought I’d have one by now and I have the date, the place and the flowers, what am I going to do?”  I stared at her for a minute and said “shoot and holler shit”.  I couldn’t think of anything else to say.  She tried to bring up the subject several more times and I completely ignored her.  I am not qualified to counsel her on that particular issue.

Happy drinking!