Tag Archives: bars

Tip #21 on Being a Good Bar Customer

28 Mar

Wow you guys. I haven’t written one of these since this one back in August of 2016, and that one included positive reinforcement. I know they were a popular part of my blog, but almost getting fired over writing them sort of took the shine off the whole thing, you know? Well, whatever. That was then and this is now. And I still don’t actually think I did anything wrong, as long as you don’t consider hurting the feelings of a couple of arrogant, misogynist assholes “something wrong.” I certainly don’t. So, that being said, let us continue.

So this post is a lot less about someone actually doing something awful and a lot more about one of my biggest pet peeves as a bartender. And it’s not just me! I did a (very limited) survey of some of the bartenders that I know and discovered that this is a pet peeve shared by all two of them! So I will extrapolate this data and apply it to all other bartenders and voila! I declare this pet peeve universally held. What is the pet peeve, you may ask? Let me tell you a little story.

So there I am, behind the bar. A new customer walks in. I greet him with a peppy(ish)

Hey! How are you?

as I reach over, grab a coaster and toss it in front of him. He replies that he is okay, takes his phone out of his pocket, puts it down, takes his seat and orders his drink. I make the drink, engaging in polite conversation as I do it. But then when I return to his seat and make a move to put his drink on the coaster that I have placed in front of him in preparation for this exact moment I realize it’s gone. But I swear that I put it there. I always put down a coaster. That’s part of the whole steps of service thing that I am so accustomed to. So where could it be? And then I see it: his phone. He has put it on the coaster. And I am immediately reminded of the hundreds and hundreds of times this exact scenario has played itself out over the past decade and change during which I have occupied space behind the stick.

And I am left wondering, why? Why do people do this? Do they have coasters on their coffee tables that they use as resting places for their phones while they watch TV, placing their beer or whisky on the rocks directly on the wood, potentially leaving a ring? Do they always have two coasters present, one for the phone and one for the drink, just so that their phone doesn’t some how feel less welcome? Do they enjoy constantly wiping up small puddles of condensation that has accumulated on their surfaces? Is this just a small expression of their concern for the environment, and their worry of our ever-expanding landfills and its effects on the planet that we call home? Am I missing something?

I am also left standing there with a prepared drink and no pre-placed (and available) coaster upon which to place it. What is a bartender to do? Well, there are a number of different possible next steps.

  1. Shrug your shoulders and place the drink directly on the bar;
  2. Grab a new coaster, toss it either casually or angrily next to the original coaster (this is entirely dependent on the bartender’s mood and/or the number of times she has faced this exact same scenario that shift), and place the drink atop its new throne;
  3. Reach down, grab the phone (AKA coaster stealer), move it and then place the drink down on the original coaster all while making eye contact with the customer;
  4. Place the drink on top of the phone which has now become the de facto coaster after its successful ouster of the previous coaster which was not fairly elected in the first place.

Personally, I oscillate between options 2 and 3. They are direct and instructive (two things I love being!) all without putting myself at risk of an accusation of destruction of property even though, really, putting your phone on the bar is pretty dumb.* One of the two people I surveyed for this post recently made use of option 4 and told me that although it didn’t go over that well in the moment (PSA: no phone was harmed in the placing of the drink) it is pretty funny in hindsight. He doesn’t, however, recommend that particular course of action for the faint of heart. So, I don’t know, maybe I will leave that for the blessed day that I work my last ever bartending shift. Which will probably never happen. Whatever, a girl can dream.

And, while I’m dreaming, you can journey around my blog and read all the previous tip as well as all the other random shit I write about. It’ll be fun (and sometimes infuriating). But mostly fun. I swear.

*I do it all the time.

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I Thought We Were Friends

2 Feb

Sometime in the late spring, early summer of 2010 I rode the B63 bus down Atlantic Avenue from my bartending job towards home. I was drunk. I was drunk a lot that summer. I was heartbroken and in complete free fall. I sat staring out the window, tears silently streaming down my cheeks as they often did, wondering what I had done wrong, how I could fix it and when the pain – so emotionally present that it turned into physical hurt – would stop. I was pretty sure it never would, that the pain was my new normal. The bus stopped and a man, probably around my age, appeared in front of me. He smiled and gave me a hand-written note before he walked off the bus and into the night.

You’re beautiful when you cry. Call me.

The tears stopped. I held the note in my right hand between by thumb and fore finger and stared blankly out the window. I took it with me as I exited the bus and looked at it as I made my way home. At the first trashcan I found I spit violently on the small slip of paper – imagining it was the man’s face – crumpled it up and threw it into the garbage. Being mad at him and all the other strangers who seemed to smell my vulnerability that summer was so easy. It felt as though men – anonymous men, not the men I knew – were all dogs.

The pain eventually dulled. I fell in love again.

***

Going on two years ago my most recent relationship ended. We were together for almost four years. What do they say in all those articles about break-ups, that it takes half the length of the relationship to get over it? Maybe there is something to that because I am just now about back to normal and by normal I mean that the idea of being involved in the dating scene makes me want to scream. This guy at work last night asked me how I meet people to date and my honest response was that I don’t. I just don’t.

I could chalk it up to my work schedule. That being almost entirely unavailable on weekends makes it near impossible to meet someone. I could blame modern dating and the rise of internet dating sites. As someone who works in a social setting with already precarious power dynamics, the idea of some guy seeing me on the Internet and then walking into my bar and thinking he has some kind of leverage terrifies me. I could blame my most recent dating experiences and the assumption men seem to have that if a date is going halfway decently it’s their cue to try and come home with me. Good fucking luck. But the reality is that I blame my friends. Or, more accurately, people I thought were my friends. I blame the people that made me feel like my only value is in my body and what it can offer them.

Let me quote an article from Salon that finally gave me the strength to write this post, this post that I have been writing over and over again in my head but never wanted to actually put to paper, so to speak, for fear of hurting the feelings of people who never had any consideration for mine.

When the bad things that happen are normal, you become tough. It’s devastating how tough I am.

So, as a 30-year-old woman who has been through a range of horribly exploitative sexual and emotional experiences—you know, just like pretty much every woman you know—I really don’t want to know anymore if a stranger finds me attractive. Not right out of the gate. Hell no. There are so many more interesting things about me than my body… This is why I cherish my friendships with straight dudes who would never try to fuck me even if we are trashed, and is probably part of why I hang out with a lot of queer people. 

This is why I’ve gone home in tears after someone I respect says they think I’m smart and funny and interesting and they’d like to have a drink and rap about the world, and then just tries to fuck me after I patiently dodge their advances all night. Were they not even paying attention? … I am still, as a grown woman, trying not to mentally respond to that situation by thinking: “Well, that person just wanted to fuck you. Maybe you are not really that smart or interesting.” That precise feeling is one that I don’t really think straight dudes can fully relate to: You are invisible, but they still want to fuck you. They do not see you or hear you. They still might rape you. This is why somebody putting their eyes all over me or immediately telling me they like the way I look is no longer flattering. Because it makes me feel fucking invisible.

The woman who wrote this article is a bartender in her 30s, like me. And she, too, is fucking exhausted by how much she is sexualized at work. This past week, I have been given 2 phone numbers, been told by a customer that he has wet dreams about me, had a coworker hit on me by alluding to the version of 50 Shades of Grey that we could make together, and had to tell someone that my tits could not pour him his beer so if he would please look at my face when requesting service it would be appreciated. Sometimes I leave work feeling like a pair of boobs and a hole to fuck, with arms conveniently attached to provide liquid courage. The thing I make my money off of is the same one that empowers men to disempower me and managing that disempowerment, that power dynamic, is tricky. It is intertwined with my ability to earn a living. And it is exhausting.

When I leave work at 4am, I try to leave all of that behind me. I try to reenter a world where I am valued for more than my body and my ability to pour liquid into a cup. Of course, I want people to find me attractive but I want that to be attached to the fact that I am smart and funny and interesting. Those are the things I value about myself. So when I read this line — This is why I have gone home in tears after someone I respect says they think I’m smart and funny and interesting and they’d like to have a drink and rap about the world, and then just tries to fuck me after I patiently dodge their advances all night. Were they not even paying attention? — I was like, finally, someone else said it. Because I, too, have gone home in tears. I have spent the better part of the last two years thinking my taste in (male) friends sucks because one after another after another after another of my straight male friends have tried to fuck me. I barely have any left. To those who have been my friend all this time I value you more than I can really say.

Somewhat recently I met up with an old friend for a drink. We hadn’t hung out in awhile because life took us in different directions but I was happy to catch up. It took him about 2 hours to try and fuck me. I told him about my life, what I’ve been up to, what I’ve been thinking about. He told me how he always thought I was so hot. He thought he was flattering me. I have never felt so cheap, so misled, so socially inept. How did I not know? How did I ever think this drink was about us catching up as friends? How did I not see this coming? How stupid can a person be?

I, like the well-trained woman that I am, blamed myself. Over and over again.

My ex-boyfriends all knew that the best way into my pants was through loving my brain, not lusting after my body. But of course, they were listening. There was more in it for them. I was visible. Me. I was more than just  a conquest, or the fulfillment of a long curiosity. I was a human being with unique value. And I am done feeling as though I did something wrong to mislead people about what I was looking for. I have always been clear. So be my friend or don’t be. But if you’re just looking to fuck, move along. I’m not interested. Stop wasting my time. Stop making me feel like garbage. Because after all these years it takes me more and more time to rebuild myself after work. If you’re really my friend, you should be supporting me. So stop tearing me down.

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Second Base at the Bar

30 Jul

So you guys.  I know that I should be a smart and responsible person and learn from my mistakes.  Well, “mistakes” is not actually the right word so maybe I should try that sentence again.  I know that I should be a smart and responsible person and try to understand and respect the expectations of others, even though it means keeping my mouth shut in the face of really shitty behavior.  As much as I want to do it, I will not write another bartender tip.  I have a really good one in mind (many, actually) but in an effort to not complicate my life again I will just keep them to myself until the time when I no longer have to tend bar (that one was for you, Ben) for a living which is seeming less and less likely to ever be the case.  I might have to take these tips to my grave.  But just because I can’t write about the absurd things people do from the perspective of a bartender does not mean I cannot write about the absurd things people do from the perspective of a bar customer, right? Right!  Let’s go!

Okay, so, this is funny.  I know we have all done this at some point (I totally have and I still feel awful about it).  We have all made poor choices and made out at a bar.  It is not right but it happens.  As someone who has done this before, I really try to be as understanding about other people’s situations as possible.  Maybe one of them lives with their mom.  Maybe one, or both, of them is in a relationship with someone else who they live with and so neither one can take the other one home and they don’t have enough money, or motivation, for a hotel room.  Maybe one of the people ate something really good and the other person wanted to taste the thing but the first person had already finished it and so the only hope of getting a little sample is to somehow experience the flavor through the remnants of the food that is caught in the other person’s mouth.  I mean, this can involve some very creative uses of the tongue.  Anyway, as I said, I tend to not be bothered too much by making out at the bar.  I mean, it’s not great, but I get it.  We all make mistakes.  There are circumstances.  Hormones.  Also, booze.  It’s cool.  Sometimes, though, people go a little too far.

So the other night I went out for a drink with my friend Ben to try and recap this thing we had done earlier in the day that we were both really excited about.  We did one of those things where one of us was like

“Hey, remember that really awesome thing we did earlier with that thing and the ideas? Wasn’t that great?!”

And the other one was like,

“Totally.  We are basically the best.”

We were doing that for awhile.  Self-congratulation is always a good time, especially when you have teammate to do it with.  Anyway, so there we were, drinking whisky and feeling like the champions that we are when this couple walked in.  It was one of those weird couples where, like, you look at the two people and they don’t really make so much sense together, physically speaking?  So you think that maybe one of them has a really good personality, or the other one is hot but with a not so good personality.  Or maybe the dude has a huge dick.  I don’t know, that’s what I thought.  But maybe that’s just because I haven’t had sex in a while.  Anyway, we went back to doing what we were doing (read: feeling like super heroes) when the two of them started making out hardcore at the bar right behind the taps.  Whatever, I didn’t really care.  I mean, maybe a booth would be a better location but who am I to say.  Also, maybe he had her favorite flavor gum and she just wanted to borrow it for a minute.  I could see that happening.  Ben and I looked at them for a quick second and went back to our conversation.  A few minutes later, and for reasons I cannot really explain, I looked back over at the couple.  I looked back over at exactly the right (actually, wrong) moment.  I saw the girl reaching into her shirt.  I thought at first that maybe she dropped a crumb in there.  Or the piece of gum she had possibly borrowed from her friend minutes prior.  But, no.  There weren’t crumbs.  No gum.  Just her tit.  She pulled her boob out and, in a very graceful movement and before even the dude knew what was happening, she had put her hand on the back of his head and literally shoved him downward, thrusting her now exposed breast into his mouth where he proceeded to suck on it.  At the bar.  Where there were other people.  Watching.  Not so much in a voyeuristic way but more in a “wait a second is what I think I am seeing actually what I am seeing?” sort of a way.  It was exactly what we all thought we were seeing.  Second base at the bar.  At that point Ben turned to me and said,

“What time is it?”

I looked at my watch.  It was not yet 10pm.  We immediately started laughing which caught the attention of the bartender who then looked over, saw what was happening, and also started laughing.  I mean, there really was no other response.  I mean, you couldn’t be mad really.  Or disgusted.  You almost had to respect it.  It was just so damn ballsy!  So the bartender, once he was done cackling, told them that they could kiss a little but to maybe keep it more PG and also that they should probably keep their clothes on.  A few minutes later she started grinding on him.  To Bjork.  It was really very odd.  Anyway, at this point the bartender had had enough and asked them to leave.  They got confused and tried to exit out of literally every door in the place, bathroom included, before they figured out they just had to leave out the same door that had previously come in through.  They remained on the ramp to the bar for some period of time doing I can only imagine what, with the male half taking occasional bathroom breaks.  It was all very strange.  As it turns out, they had been kicked out of two other bars before the one Ben and I saw them in which leads one to wonder, was this a repeat performance or a case of escalation?  Did they get caught before he got a little handy action?  (Do people still call it a handy?)  Was this part of some sort of huge social experiment to see how far thye could take it before getting asked to leave?  Did she ever get to have a chew of the gum he so selfishly had the last piece of?  I have so many questions.

Now today I am left wondering whether they ever ended up finding a place to have sex.  I sort of hope they did because I would imagine the whole experience would leave them both rather frustrated indeed.  Also though right now, having recounted the fact that I thought about the culmination of their very strange and public version of foreplay, I feel like a little bit of a perv.  I am going to cleanse my mind by watching this video on repeat and trying to figure out how to make this song my ringtone:

UPDATE:  Just moments after finishing this post I headed to train at the next stop on Rebekah’s Tour de Bars 2014.  So I walk in and no more than 25 minutes later in walks the same couple that I wrote the blog about, still sort of drunk, maybe coked out, in the same clothes.  I tried so hard to not laugh that, in an effort to hold the laughter inside, tears started pouring out of my eyes.  And this bar was not one of the three bars (that I know of) that this couple got kicked out of for public boob sucking.  Folks, you just can’t make this shit up.

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Ugh

15 Jun

As you can probably gather from the title, this is bound to be an especially well-written post.  So I apologize in advance if this is just a whole big page full of word vomit.

Have you ever had one of those days where you’re jut like, “ugh, everything is just stupid.”  Well I have.  And I did recently.  It was yesterday. I don’t know where exactly it came from but I was on a walk to visit a friend over in Ditmas Park where she was pulling pints at some event or another for some local New York City food truck vendor.  At least I think it was a food truck vendor.  They all have food trucks these days, right?  And actually, the event maybe wasn’t really for the vendor, the vendor was just included in it.  I don’t know, I didn’t really care about the vendor or the beer, to be honest, I just wanted an excuse to go for a long walk and see my friend.  So there I was, walking, listening to the same damn music I have been listening to on all my walks recently and it just hit me like a ton of bricks…

…everything right now is just sort of stupid.

And then I had this really strong urge to just punch a wall or something.  But not like, a hard wall, more like some sheet rock or something.  Or, better yet, maybe some sheet rock that has already been munched on by some termites, assuming termites even eat sheet rock, so it’s not really all that hard.  What I really wanted to do was punch a not-so-hard wall so I had the pleasure of feeling really tough when my hand came crashing through the other side but without the downside of (a) bloodying my knuckles, (b) punching the wall and not actually having my hand come through the other side or (c) some combination of a and b.  I actually thought about all that for a good five minutes.  And that, friends, is part of the reason why everything is stupid because rather than busying my mind with fun adventures, or like problem-solving or, I don’t know, coming up with some semblance of a plan for my life which is sort of a mess, I thought about the ideal way to punch a wall, or something resembling a wall, so that my hand would come through the other side and I would feel like a super hero.  I actually thought to myself…

…well, everything else might be stupid but the one thing that would not be stupid would be me punching my hand through a wall and not getting hurt.

And then I promptly thought…

…get it together, Frank.

Like, seriously.

So here are some of the things that are stupid:

(1) My cat, Clark, has now remembered how fun it is to knock things off the shelves and so last night, at around 2am, he took it upon himself to knock every single can of his food off the shelf, one by one.  Crash.  Crash.  Crash.

(2) The hand soap in the bathroom ran out so I decided to replace it with Dr. Bronner’s and now it sort of looks like someone peed in the soap dispenser which is both funny but also sort of unnerving.

(3) I need a vacuum.

(4) I had a conversation with my friend on the phone and we came to the conclusion that the economy sucks, that our field is a mess and I had a mini-panic attack that I am going to spend the rest of my life assembling storage racks in windowless rooms and avoiding getting stabbed with rusty nails while I break down crates for like $15 an hour.  It’s a long story.  The central message being that higher education is not all it’s cracked up to be.

(5) I wore my new sandals and ripped the top 4 layers of skin off my cute and tiny pinky toe.

There are lots of other stupid things that actually matter (well, number 4 matters and, actually a little bit number 2 also because urine in a soap dispenser…ew) but I don’t really want to write about them here because they are A Bigger Deal.  But suffice it to say that all the things that are stupid have brought me to the conclusion that I have been going about this whole life thing entirely incorrectly.  The whole thing, wrong approach this entire time and no one told me.  No one was like

Hey, Rebekah, I know you think you have it together but the thing is that you’re wrong and I just thought maybe you should know so you don’t continue on embarrassing yourself kind of like that one time when you went for a run and the string of your tampon was hanging out the bottom of your shorts.  Remember that?  Good times.

And then the other thing is this.  So I have been trying to amend my approach to things and sort of take the high road and as it turns out taking the high road sort of just sucks sometimes.  There’s no real satisfaction involved in the high road.  You have to be all, “well, this isn’t really worth me losing my cool over so I will just shrug my shoulders and sit over here and watch while you implode every so slowly.”  But the thing is that sometimes the implosion never happens, and the person goes through life sort of just being a dick and thinking they are right all the time and you have to know that they also think they are right vis-a-vis you and that one time (or maybe multiple times) they said something really sort of offensive and you knew if you called them out on it they would shrug their shoulders and then be all

whatever, bitches be crazy.

And I hate that.  It’s so…for lack of a better word, stupid.  And you know what else?  I really think I should be able to call dudes out on their misogyny without them then giving me the side eye and thinking I am a complete nut job.  Or like, I should be able to tell random dudes at bars that “accidentally” touching my leg 6 times is not okay when there is absolutely zero need for you to be standing that close to me in the first place without the fear that it will turn into A Thing and I will feel uncomfortable and like I did something wrong and that probably I should just leave.

And I just washed my hands with the pee soap again.  I really need to do something about that.

Okay, I am going to go for a run now in hopes that it will adjust the whole thing that is happening in my head.  Maybe I will come back from the run and realize that in actuality only like 50% of the things are stupid and that’s something I can maybe work with.  And then tomorrow maybe I will be back to writing about how the men’s rights movement is the most ridiculous movement I have ever heard of.  But not today.  Today is Father’s Day and so I will lay off doing the things that make my father worried about my safety.

Happy Father’s day to all the dad’s but especially to my dad, the second greatest dad in the world after King Tritan from The Little Mermaid.  That’s an old joke.  Don’t ask.

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Can I Smell Your Feet?

13 Apr

As any of you avid readers already know, I have gotten a new job.  Well, I think I have.  I am sort of waiting for all the details to sort themselves out.  So in the meantime I have been running around like a crazy person trying to get things done.  You know, buying clothes with my friend Meredith (who totally saved my fucking life, by the way) and doing important things like having an impromptu shredding party with my friend Ben!  So, get this.  I am subletting my room while I am away to a friend, and former roommate, who is going to double as a catsitter!  I decided that the most important thing to do before his arrival was not to clean out space for his stuff in the closet but instead to shred all the paper that has been piling up around the room.  I had noticed when I was at Staples the other day that they have a shredding service and since the drawer in my shredder is jammed shut somehow I thought I would lug all the paper to Staples and have them do away with it.  But first, I had to go to Ben’s to help him out with something.  So I walked up the block with all my shreddable things, figuring I would ask him if he needed anything shredded and I could just take it with me to Staples.  So he opens the door to his building and you will not believe what happened.

Ben: So I have to show you my new toy.
Me: Oh?
Ben: Yea. Well, I already maybe jammed it but look at my new shredder!

I kid you not.  Ben was sitting in his house shredding!  And I needed to shred!  What are the odds?!  It was like, totally meant to be.  Anyway, after two hours we had over-heated the shredder and had to call it quits but we both felt totally accomplished and I felt like we were really meant to be friends, you know?  I mean, who else but a real friend would (a) be shredding when you needed to be shredding (b) invite you to shred with him and (c) play kickass tunes while shredding?!  No one, that’s who!

Anyway, none of this is the point.  The point is that while I am waiting for my job to come through I have been picking up a bar shift here and there to make some extra cash and keep myself busy.  So last night I picked up a shift and it was really fun!  The people were nice, it was chill, I did some chatting, I caught up with an old friend who I hadn’t sat down with and talked to for quite some time.  It was all really good.  Except for this one thing.  They have a creepy prank phone caller!  So there I was, behind the bar, minding my own business when the phone rang.  I answered.

Me: Good evening, (insert name of bar here).
Creeper: Mumbles something incomprehensible.Me: Come again?
Creeper: More incomprehensible mumbling.
Me: Dude, you really are going to need to enunciate a little better than that if you want me to help you with something.
Creeper: Still completely incapable of speaking comprehensibly.

I hung up the phone.  I then walked over to my coworker and told him that someone called and I couldn’t understand what the hell he was saying and my coworker said,

“Did he ask if he could smell your feet?”

I realized just in that moment that that was exactly what he had asked!  I was immediately disgusted and went on one of my “what is wrong with people?!” downward spirals.  In mid-spiral the phone rang again!

Me: Good evening, (insert name of bar here).
Creeper:  Can I smell you feet?
Me: Dude!

I hung up. Then my coworker informed me that this guy only calls when there is a female bartender working.  Like, what?!  So then I was even more grossed out cuz he is like, chilling outside maybe.  Or he lives across the street and spies with creepy little binoculars while wearing a satin robe.  I mean, if you are going to do all that at least ask everyone if you can smell their feet.  I mean, it is still a totally creepy thing to do but it is maybe less creepy when it is like an equal opportunity thing, am I right?  So I decided something had to be done.  I simply could not stand idly by and allow this weird phone creeper to keep calling, creeping people out and being a weirdo.  So I waited, patiently, for the phone to ring again and when it did I was ready!

Me:  Good evening, (insert name of bar here).
Creeper:  Can I smell your feet?
Me:  Sure.  But only if I can shit in your mouth.

And then he hung up!  I out creeped the creeper!  I don’t know if this is something that I should necessarily be proud of but, you know, I felt as though there was a job that needed doing and I was the one who could do it.  If anyone can out creep someone by using statements about fecal matter, it was this girl.  The funny thing about all this is that the people around the phone when I answered really didn’t know what was going on so all they heard was this:

Me:  Good evening, (insert name of bar here).
Silence as I awaited the response I knew was coming.
Me:  Sure.  But only if I can shit in your mouth.

And then I had a big smile on my face.  So there was a moment there where I wasn’t a woman in battle with a creeper, I was the creeper!  It was me.  Rebekah the creeper.  Obviously I cleared up the situation and we all laughed and laughed but there was a moment there where I really saw the fear in their eyes as if they were thinking

“if she would shit in the mouth of some random caller what else is she capable of?!”

I felt what it might be like to be a creeper and I didn’t like it.  I didn’t like it one bit.

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