Tag Archives: drinking

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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Tip #13 on Being a Good Bar Customer

31 Jan

The hits just keep on coming, folks.  If you want to catch up on the earlier tips, you can go to them here: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, and XII.  Did I get those right?  I haven’t done roman numerals in a long time.  But the Super Bowl is coming up and that’s basically the only time you ever see roman numerals so I figured I would get in the spirit.  Go sports.

So you guys.  We have made it all the way to 13 tips.  When I first started doing these lo these many years ago, I figured I would have five, maybe six, tips.  But no.  People just keep upping their game.  They keep fucking up, and I keep writing about it.  This might turn out to have as many tips as Sue Grafton has mystery novels.  Only time will tell.

So over the past number of years that I have worked behind the same bar, I have had this reoccurring nightmare of people walking behind the bar. It’s like, I’m there, working, and I can’t seem to get to people fast enough.  There are barely any people there and they order relatively simple things, but I just can’t seem to put them across the bar in any reasonable amount of time.  I just sort of wander around, looking for things, spilling, forgetting.  And then, they come.  One after another after another people just start filing behind the bar so I am left trying to make drinks while shooing people away.  It’s awful.  Thankfully, that has never happened in real life. Well, until a few weeks ago.

It was a normal Sunday.  I had sports on.  So, this trio came in, one girl and two guys.  The guy must have been married to the girl because he had a picture of her as the background of his debit card.  I thought that was weird and decided that if I ever get to a point in my life where I think that is a reasonable thing to do I will pack up some belongings and move into a cave for however long it takes for me to figure out exactly where everything went so horribly wrong.  The guy ordered three “beers.”

Eye roll.

I told him I wasn’t really sure what he meant by that and asked what kind of beer he generally likes.  In a surprising turn of events he decided upon the hoppiest thing we had on tap. Those beers went unfinished.  Oh well.  The reason that I give you all these seemingly inane details is that I had already kind of pegged this group as a little off.  Not that they did anything wrong, but just that I had to be prepared for the potentiality of weirdness.  I actually kind of like that.  I mean, normal, more or less predictable people are great but every once in a while it is nice to throw some weird in there.  Keep things interesting.  Anyway, it was one of those days where I had a pretty full bar but all the drinkers were really pacing themselves.  So even though I had lots of people in there, I had very little to do.  I paced.  I made awkward comments to no one in particular.  I washed a few glasses.  I received a text message!  Before responding I did a quick walk around the bar, checking to make sure everyone was sufficiently drinked (they were) and I settled down to respond to the text which was, as it turns out, hilarious.  I have a lot of funny friends.  For those who don’t know, I work in a long bar.  I think we probably have something like 24 seats at the bar?  Maybe more?  Anyway, I was standing in the middle of the bar with my back to the backdoor when all of a sudden I hear a small little “excuse me…?” and a tap, tap, tap on my shoulder.

Oh. My. God.  I froze.  I whipped around and made a face that looked like this squirrel which I know I have used before but whatever I don’t care.  I am this squirrel and no, Aaron, 2008 cannot have its meme back, it is mine.  So this woman, obviously a member of the weird crew, had walked like 10-12 feet behind the bar and what did she want?  What in the world could have been so pressing at that very moment that she couldn’t have (a) asked me for it like 30 seconds earlier when I had checked on her group, (b) waited another 30 seconds for me to walk back to where she was standing, or (c) walk on the other side of the bar, where she belonged, and say “excuse me” over the piece of wood separating us that isn’t, I have learned, a force field that disallows me from hearing what happens on the other side.  In fact, I would say that that piece of wood actually intensifies sound, making me able to hear orders from a ways away while my back is turned and I am having a conversation with someone else over my right shoulder.  What she wanted was a piece of chalk to mark down her score from darts.

…………

There she was, behind the bar waving a piece of chalk in my face and repeating the word “chalk” while she pointed at it because clearly I have no idea what chalk is.  So obviously I got mad.

Lady, waving the chalk.
Me: Get out from behind my bar.
Lady, still waving the chalk.
Me: Seriously, get the fuck out from behind my bar.
Lady, now seriously confused but still doggedly waving the chalk.
Me: This is unreal.  Under no circumstance do you ever walk behind someone’s bar.  Ever.  Get out from behind the bar.  Now.  And no, you cannot have any goddamn chalk!

I was really mad.  I felt like I was dealing with a toddler only this toddler was a little bit taller than me, really stupid, and badly in need of a writing implement.  Oh, and she was hurling pointy things through the air which, I have to tell you, did not make me feel confident in my safety.  The woman-child who, for those who have forgotten, is featured as the background of her husband’s debit card, spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure out why I was so mad and why she couldn’t have any chalk.  She then went back to happily hurling things.

Oh and, by the way, she barely even touched her half pint of whatever the hell it was.  It is possible that she was on drugs or had been drinking somewhere else but I don’t know.  I have served a lot of drunk and drugged out people and they have never walked behind the bar.  I guess she could have just been stupid but I have also served a lot of stupid people and they also haven’t ever walked behind the bar.  So I don’t know.  This one is a mystery to me.  But I am happy to know that, thanks to all those nightmares over the years, I was more than prepared to handle this particular interloper.  Oh psyche, you have outdone yourself yet again.

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Tip #11 on Being a Good Bar Customer

8 Nov

Okay, so, I know I just did this but when it rains it pours, right?  If you want to check out the vintage tips, here are the links: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten.  Share them if you have some badly behaving friends.  Or if you like to judge badly behaving people.  Or if you just think it’s funny.  Or not at all.  Whatever.  I’m not the boss of you.

So at this point some of you are probably all “this girl hates people and bartending and maybe she should just get a new job.”  You can feel free to think that.  Personally, I think I am doing a public service on behalf of all the other drink slingers who are annoyed by poorly mannered patrons.  I am also a firm believer that when someone is acting like an asshat, the rest of us can feel free to judge them, and even have a few laughs at their expense, without feeling bad about it.  So, without further ado, another bit of free advice from yours truly.  Unless of course you’d like to pay me.  In which case, yes please can you email me immediately?!

So I am not a person who really likes to be touched.  When everyone else is hugging and cheek-kissing and all that stuff, I have my arm outstretched in front of my body and my hand furiously moving about in an enthusiastic wave.  I find that if I approach it this way, I am able to create a friendly barrier.  It’s like, yea, I like you, I will happily interact with you, but only when you are at least 2 feet away from me.  The outstretched arm is sort of like the enforcer of my invisible force field.  And that is with people I know.  If I don’t know you, don’t touch me.  Seriously.  I will curl myself into the smallest possible version of myself in all public circumstances in order to avoid any inadvertent bodily contact.  I am not a hand holder, not a snuggler, not a fan of massages. So now that I have scared all my friends and have them all thinking

“oh my god I think I maybe gave her a hug once?  Does she hate me?!”

I will continue with the tip.  But only after I say this: it’s cool, friends, you can hug me.  You’ve passed the test.  Whatever that means.

So, the tip. I am aware that I am especially weird about touching, but I think I can speak for bartenders the world over when I say to you: do not touch your bartender.  Seriously.  Remember that lesson you learned in pre-school?  You know, use your words?  That also applies to ordering drinks.  You have a voice.  We have ears.  Let’s make this work.  So last night, when I was in the middle of a short conversation, one of my customers reached over the bar and poked me in the arm.  He had been standing at the bar waiting for me for approximately 15 seconds.  I know this because I saw him walk over, looked at him and smiled in the “I’ll be with you in a second” sort of a way. And then, because apparently waiting is so incredibly difficult especially when you have probably already had too many drinks, he poked me.  In the arm.  With his stupid index finger.  I would not wish the glare I gave him on my worst enemy.

So maybe this doesn’t seem like a big deal to some of you but it really is.  Being behind the bar is like being in a safe zone.  As bartenders, we are protected by the expansive piece of wood that separates us from the clientele.  Just imagine when you look at the bar that there is this invisible wall through which sound passes, through which drinks and currency pass, but through which your hands cannot travel.  Just because we are giving you drinks and laughing at your jokes does not make us public property.  We do not belong to you.

Okay, so, imagine that you are like, a computer tech person.  You are one of those people that answers phone calls from people like me.  People who know nothing about technology and need all the help all the time for the stupidest things.  And let’s say that I have called you and I am on hold while you are trying to help some other technologically-challenged person.  But let’s just say, for the sake of this tip, that I got impatient and I possessed the power, just like in the cartoons, to reach my hand through the phone and poke you on the arm to get your attention.  That would be shocking, right?  And not just because I had achieved a feat that previously seemed impossible. It would also be shocking because you’d be like,

“here I am, sitting at my desk doing my job and that asshole just reached through the phone and poked me on the shoulder!  With her stupid index finger!”

And you know what?  Your reaction would be absolutely justified because I should keep my hands to myself.  So just think about it this way.  The bar, it is like my desk.  You are the technologically-challenged person on the other end of the phone.  The space in between us is sort of like a phone cord.  Imagine that it is impossible for you to touch me.  Because here’s the thing.  I know that you are at the bar with your friends having fun, but that doesn’t make it any less of a job for me.  I am not your drinking buddy.  I am helping you fill a need.  The need for more alcohol.  It is, although it might not seem this way to you, a professional interaction.  I am a professional.  And you don’t touch professionals.

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