Adventures in Bartending #147

Yes the blogging is getting sparse. Revisions came Wednesday night. They are due 1/7. This is a faster turnaround than last time plus over the holidays. Right now I hardly feel like I have time to sleep. I'll try to blog a couple times a week, but Twitter is the best way to keep up with my random thoughts right now. I have more thoughts to share about revisions and BALLADS but right now I'm blogging because I just got home from work and I know you guys like the crazy bartending stories, so here are my most recent adventures in bartending.

It was probably the worst weekend I've worked thus far. Not because of bad drama (though there was some), but because thanks to the cold and snow, it was the slowest and I made very little money. Sigh. Another reason to hate winter. That's reason #35328563876.

Anyway Saturday night was dead until midnight. You may have seen my random tweets (another reason to go on Twitter). For awhile my only customer was this couple that comes in. The dude only drinks water. The chick is crazy crazy crazy. My boss said he thinks she is literally a crackhead. She asked me to rate the dude and offered to pull down his pants so I could rate that. Umm no thanks. Yeah that was the start to my weekend. Now for my Good, Bad, WTF breakdown.

Good
Now I'm only rating this good because my 15 year old self would have thought it the coolest thing on earth. At 29, it's more of a WTF. Tonight one customer partially tipped me in weed. Yes. Weed.

Bad
Annoying customer who pissed off my good customer by being borderline racist (making vast generalizations about crime for the most part). He also kept asking me stupid questions and sharing his stupid theories about how all girl bartenders drop into conversation that they have a boyfriend. This came up because I told a customer who has met my boyfriend that my boyfriend would like the drink he taught me. Newsflash: All girl bartenders tell YOU they have a boyfriend because you're gross, creepy, borderline racist and definitely annoying.

WTF
Last night upon leaving the bar, Scott and I were accosted by a crazy drunk girl (not a person I overserved mind you, a random stranger). She came charging toward me, not wearing a coat and it had to be like 0 degrees and she told me "You have to hide me!" Then she ducked down behind Scott's car and told me, "If anyone asks you if you've seen Julie you haven't!" Scott meanwhile was wondering if he is about to be caught in the crossfire of a driveby shooting. Once the car passed, she stood up and started babbling about a fight with her brother-in-law and needing to call her husband (her cell phone was in her hand, mind you) and could we just give her a ride. Scott and I exchanged doubtful looks. I generally have sympathy for girls and automatically want to help them, plus, she was pierced, tattooed, someone who I would have thought looked cool, if she weren't acting like a crazy drunk. We asked her where she lived and all she could seem to spit out was "Roosevelt Road."

"Roosevelt Road and what?" we asked

"There's a Walgreens..."

Sigh. I know of at least 3 Walgreens on Roosevelt Road. Scott guessed the one closest to our house. "Harlem?" he ventured.

"No. I don't know. I'm from New York. Villa Park, I live in Villa Park. Roosevelt Road. Villa Park."

I wasn't even sure if Villa Park was near Roosevelt Road. I've checked now and it is, but it is far away from where we live. So we offered to call her a cab. She asked me if I could just let her "in that house" so she could call her husband. "The house" she referred to was the Beacon... I tried to explain this. "That's a bar. I just locked it. We can't get back in there."

"I don't want to go to a bar."

The conversation went in circles for a few minutes and then abruptly she ran off only to slip on the ice and fall on her ass a few feet away. Scott and I got in the car and debated calling the police. I grew up punk, I don't like to call the police. I don't think of Officer Friendly, I think of Officer Wrongful Arrest or police brutality, but I'm kind of freaked out that this girl might freeze to death and that someone is after her. Besides all the Forest Park police I've met have been nice. But before we can decide about calling the police the person who is after her shows up. In an SUV, even though the car the girl hid from was a sportscar. The guy that gets out is huge and appears to be smoking a cigar. I have my phone posed and ready, any sort of shouting or violent looking gestures and I'm calling the police. But he is just talking to her calmly. We are sitting in the car with the headlights on not going anywhere though, being an obvious presence. After a minute another person gets out of the SUV and approaches us, indicating to roll the window down. It's a woman so I tell Scott to do it (I should also mention that we just watched the Californication where Hank gets carjacked so I was mildly paranoid about that through all of this since you know, bartender, people are gonna think I have lots of cash). She explains that the crazy girl is indeed their sister in law and she got drunk at Doc Ryans and then disappeared and they have been looking everywhere for her for half an hour. She also scratched the brother in laws face unprovoked. She thanks us profusely for keeping an eye on crazy drunk girl. I definitely believed her so I advise her to get crazy girl in the car ASAP because cold weather plus massive quantities of alcohol = bad. Then we drive off.

Yeah, WTF. But this job is definitely way more interesting that office work, wouldn't you say?