Welcome, what's your poison???

So, I was a bartender for five years. Ahh, five of the best years of my life. Worked about ten hours a day, three days a week, made more than I made at UPS before that (having been there 6 years by the time I jumped ship, so hourly the big brown was giving me somewhere around $15 an hour, but at three, maybe four hours a night, well...) and more than I make now as a full-time supervisor at a corporate book giant. Imagine that. Yeah, so like I said, five of the best years of my life. So, while it was all happening I kept a log. Not from the beginning, but about half way through the second year I just started writing down random incidents because IT WAS SUCH A STRANGE FUCKING JOB. I mean, really, sex, drugs, maybe not rock and roll, but live lounge bands three times a week, so, you know...

But I digress. So as I wrote this stuff down, more and more I wanted to turn it into a book, or a comic or something. I still tell people these stories all the time and they still laugh their asses off. There's just something about the life of a bartender. For one it makes you into a barfly, and barflys always have stories to tell. But when your on the serving side, you get a special view that no one else in the joint gets - they all see cross sections - you see the whole story. You see everyone come in sober and leave stoned. Or you see everyone come in stoned and leave, well, more stoned. Or in a paddy wagon.

So this is going to be a running attempt at putting these stories down. Hopefully it'll get me a book deal or something. Then maybe Oprah will read it, recognize it for the triumph of human spirit it is (really!) and pimp it in her book club, then I'll get rich and open my own bar. I always said, if I ever had my own bar, two rules: 1) Tuesday, Wednsday and Thursday I'd be behind the bar with my old partner in crime 'Eye'. 2) Every single employee there would get the same start-up speech, "If anyone disrespects you, other customers, gives you shit or just generally acts like an asshole, THROW THEM THE FUCK OUT. Or better yet, call me and I'll THROW THEM THE FUCK OUT.*

There, introductions forthcoming, lets move on to the first entry.

Thanks for reading.

*Yes, I know its somewhat hard to believe, but some people do act like assholes in bars. Hijinks are one thing, but mean-spirited dirtbags who like to pick on those of us in the service industry? Cannon fodder as far as I'm concerned. You'll get a much better idea of who does and doesn't fall into this category as we continue on.