Money in the pocket...

Okay all You prospective bartenders, here's a serious part of the conversation, so listen up. When You get a gig in the service industry You ALWAYS HAVE MONEY IN THE POCKET. This is one of the most amazing and useful aspects of the job, and even if you have a day that seems solely populated by busloads of customers from hell, with the help of your regulars by the end of the night, or at the very least the next day, you will be counting the money and remembering why exactly it is you deal with douche bags who say things like, 'this Virgin Pina colada isn't strong enough' or 'you didn't make this Cosmo right, it tastes like booze'. Really. Seriously. Truly.

However, as with most aspects of life on this tempestuous planet of ours, what is the GOOD thing is also, in some why, the BAD thing. Oh yes my children, I can hear you now:

"How can having money in the pocket be a BAD thing?"

Let me explain.

I used to go to this liquor store on 65th and Cicero every Wednsday night after work. I always hung with friends after work on Wednsday, and when I hadn't planned ahead and needed to acquire beer at 2AM this was a pretty good ticket. It was a shitty little hole in the wall on the Southside of Chicago, the kind of place where there are always these bum-ass looking motherfuckers with filthy clothes and filthier beards hanging out looking at the porno magazines readily on display in a spinner rack on the floor.* Scum hole that it was this particular posion shop had two things working in its favor. 1) It sold until 4 AM and, 2) it had a pretty decent beer selection. GOOSE ISLAND, HOEGARDEN, BASS, etc. And actually, the third thing it had going was a friendly staff.

But wait, here's where the issue comes in.

So let's say you get your gig, your working late and you start frequenting a place like this. The more you come in the more the guy behind the counter starts to recognize you. You're not a vile retard like most of his customers so you maybe start a little bit of conversation here and there. If you're not careful you start thinking of him as an okay guy, dropping your guard and forgetting that he's working in a dead end job, in the middle of a shit neighborhood, and you're walking in every week with a couple hundred dollars in your pocket.** Maybe you're not a cynic who thinks the human race is, by a , a festering sewer, and pretty soon it seems perfectly natural that the guy is asking you about what you do, as, in my case at least, I was coming in in uniform (those cheesy tuxedo shirts and black slacks really do make you stick out like a sore thumb next to filth-Henry at the spinner rack). From here he might wait a couple weeks before he asks how you do over there, you know, money-wise, as if he's innocently exploring career options (yeah, sorry, that teardrop tattoo is pretty much gonna count you outta any of these gigs in this town at least). You see what's going on here?

YOU HAVE MONEY. YOU ARE A TARGET. When I realized this I quickly jotted the lesson down and put it under my pillow, then stopped going to the place.

Now, I know its paranoia, but I've always said a healthy dose of paranoia is a good thing. It will keep you alive and out of stupid situations. And these situations can really catch you unaware. Let's talk about another one.

If you are a single guy and you are a bartender, you will be looking to score. END OF STORY. To go a bit backwoods vernacular for a moment, 'There ain't no innocence in this gig, and if there is when you come in it will get wrung right the fuck out of you.' You're surrounded by decadence and it wears off. Your job, if you want to survive with an unscathed soul and face, is to play, but keep your fucking head on straight while you do so. That being said, here's another warning.

Bartending one night a beautiful blonde comes in and sits down by herself. Orders a drink and sits there. Now after a couple months of this you learn to temper the predator's eye with common sense - why is she alone? Girls don't often come into bars by themselves, especially ones that look like this, so THERE MUST BE A REASON WHY SHE IS ALONE. I go about my business serving people, watching all my regulars and some dopes I don't know go up and talk to her. They all buy her drinks, she accepts every one, and they all cycle off as it goes nowhere. Eventually she tells one of my reg's that she's interested in me. Now, the first thing I think is, 'why?'. I start talking to her and eventually find she's pretty cool, but suspicion lingers. Closing time comes around and she asks me if I want to go for drinks at a 4 AM place. I cautiously say I know of one, and after my closing duties we take off.

The whole time at the other bar she's getting drunker and drunker and so am I. However, I continually avoid ordering us shots even though she's mighty gung-ho about the idea. Need to keep one foot out of oblivion, see? After a while she starts talking about taking me back to her place and all I can think about is how she came into my bar, scoped out what kind of business was going on, how many regulars I was friendly with, how many drinks I bought her, how many more I bought her with money I earned that night with my tips. Be mighty convenient to scope out a bartender, make him think with his dick and bring him back to foreign turf where someone could be waiting to hit him over the head with a length of pipe and then the two of them could take the money in his pocket.

Again, paranoid? Maybe, but the situation warranted it, to avoid the possibility of trouble. Besides, if they're that into you, your bed is as good as theirs, eh?

.......

So the idea here is to recognize that like ol' Spidey said ' with great power comes great responsibility', only in this case its more like 'with great money comes great opportunity to get fucked'. When you start making that dough watch your ass because there are all kinds of freaks, weirdo's and junkies out there to who $200 is worth setting a trap for.

........

*I tell you, nothing like pouring drinks all night and wandering into a seedy liquor store at 2:15AM only to see bizarro santa claus reading Club International, the spittle hanging from his lower lip like one of those slimey hand truck stop toys and the clerk hurrying to put up a fraudulent 'OUT OF ORDER' sign on the door before old man claus can sneak off with Ms. Herpes November and rub a quick one out before returning to his full time job of walking up and down Cicero Avenue.

** Leave it in the car? In this neighborhood? Nope. Better off on your person where you can defend it.