Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Night in Shining Armor

She is pretty albeit heavy-set. She is dressed in a nice looking holiday/cocktail outfit and she definitely put some effort into both her hair and make-up. He is wearing a black t-shirt over a long-sleeved thermal shirt with ratty jeans and a black ball cap. Both of his ears are pierced with small, bejeweled bolts and he has a crazy eyebrow piercing. It’s Saturday night and the bar is packed, the music is loud and the mood is festive. I eventually get to them and ask what they want to drink.

He; “What specials do you have?”

Even though we don’t run specials on the weekend, I just list a couple of popular drinks and tell him the regular price.

He: “What do you mean you don’t sell pitchers?”

It’s not against the law to sell pitchers at Keys on Main but for reasons determined before I started working there, we don’t sell pitchers.

He: “Why don’t you sell steins?”

See reason above.

I always start with the lady when trying to get a drink order. Call me old-fashioned but I always thought decorum mandated that women were suppose to order before men. She tells me that she wants a blended, strawberry margarita. I advisor her that there are a lot better drinks than blended cocktails at the bar. As a professional bartender, my relationship with the blender is absolute contempt. Outside of the fact that they’re loud and hard to keep clean with Utah’s one-ounce pour they dilute every alcoholic drink into a kiddie-cocktail. I tell her she should try our most popular drink: “It’s Britney, Bitch.” One-ounce Stolichnaya Razberri, one-ounce DeKuyper’s Watermelon Pucker, equal parts Sprite/Red Bull and a hit of grenadine. Garnish with a lime and cherry, Britney is my go-to drink for an indecisive drinker. She orders one and her companion get a Bud Light draft (in a pint).

Drinks are served on cocktail napkins and I look at the guy and tell him he owes me $9. At this point, my faith in chivalry plummets. His slowly glances at me and then looks at his lady-friend. There’s a beat and I can actually see her enthusiasm drain from her face. She slowly opens her handbag, pulls out a debt card and hands it to me. I ask her if she wants to start a tab. She looks at him, he nods and she tells me to open one.

Poor thing.

I absolutely hate it when guys pull this move. Admittedly, I don’t know their relationship. For all I know, he just treated her to a really nice Christmas dinner. I think it completely acceptable for the guy to buy dinner and the lady to get drinks at the club afterwards. However, in this case, there is no way this pudgy shabbily-dressed turkey with dazzling earrings did anything for her with the exception of gracing us with his presence. I’d be surprised  if he even paid for her cover.

I see this too often behind the bar. Men should not be taking advantage of women. They should hold doors for them. Be attentive but not controlling. Be protective but not clingy. They should let them order first and when it is time to pay your tab, you open up your God damn wallet. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way very often. I’m not suggesting that women shouldn’t pay for their own drinks or their dates. I’m suggesting that on special nights guys should work to make it special.

I can see you women can become discouraged with meeting “nice” guys at bars. No matter how they are dressed, too often guys act like donkeys – over-consuming, acting violently and saying some of the most incredible things. I always thought that the two reasons you go to the bar is to either get drunk or hook up. If you could, wouldn’t you want to do both?

The couple move on to the floor and I get back to slinging drinks. We were slammed. The Saturday before Christmas and the club is filled with holiday cheer. We’re knocking out drinks left and right when He comes back to the bar.

He: “She’d like another Britney.”

Can I get you anything else?

He: “Yeah, I’d like a Wet Pussy.”

Time stopped. Now admittedly, for the sake of this column, I could have picked any number of sexual-named cocktails: Blow-job, Cum Shot, Bald Beaver, Butt Sex or Screaming Orgasm. The fact that he actually ordered a Wet Pussy nearly floored me. It was so shocking that I had to ask him to repeat his order.

Did you want me to make you a Wet Pussy? He nods yes. He tells me that they taste good. Well, we know they taste good. I smile from ear-to-ear and tell Becky, my fellow bartender, that (pointing directly)  this guy wants a Wet Pussy. I then inform anybody within the sound of my voice that (pointing directly)  this guy ordered a Wet Pussy. With a wink and a smile, I tell him that we’d all love to have a Wet Pussy.

There’s a lot of variations of the Wet Pussy. I make mine with one-ounce vodka, half-ounce coconut run, half-ounce peach schnapps and a hit of cranberry. Granted, they are delicious but under no circumstance can anybody with a XY chromosome order one for himself. Originally, a Cosmopolitan was known as a Thorough-bred. Maybe for guys, we should rename the Wet Pussy as Thor’s Hammer or the Nailgun.

I gave him his drinks and told him it’s $12. He tells me to put it on her tab. I stop what I was doing and told him it’s one thing to order a chick drink but it’s another thing to put it on a girl’s tab. While he looks like a girl with his earrings, he certainly isn’t Kristen (that was the lady’s first name). He told me that it was okay and I said Kristen didn’t authorize him to drink on her tab. I told him I was too busy to argue with him and if he wanted to leave with his Britney and Wet Pussy, he’d better give me $12. He gingerly opens his wallet and pulls out one of many $20 bills in there. I make change and he shuffles away.

Too often we throw around the derogatory term of “douche bag.” We use it so frequently that when we actually encounter one it lacks the gravitas it was originally intended. This guy was a FDA-certified, Grade A, 100% DOUCHE BAG and he wasn’t going to walk away from the bar without me reminding him. For the rest of the night, Kristen comes up to the bar to order her own drink. She does buy her D-Bag friend a couple more Bud Lights. I don’t say anything. It’s her choice the company she keeps; I just felt bad that she didn’t have a better date for a fun night than that turkey.

She cashes out with me around midnight and tips appropriately. I wish her a good night and I smile at him asking how his drink was. He doesn’t say anything. They go out into the night and I get back to work. It is crazy to me that if you want a Wet Pussy maybe the best way to get one is not asking your bartender to make one. Try being a gentleman, a decent companion and maybe buy the lady a drink or two. I guarantee I won’t remember him the next time he comes in and that’s okay – there’s too deep of a line of guys like him in Salt Lake and I’m sure there’ll be another lady buying him his drink.

2 comments:

  1. Love it Raskin! Keep the column going.

    ReplyDelete
  2. First off, LOVE your posts here on the blog.

    Second off, yeah, that guy sounds like a total d-bag. I feel bad for the girl he was with.

    ReplyDelete