April 8th, 2018
Finally, it’s the last day of the run, and it’s blissfully quiet.
Slow days really aren’t that bad, honestly, particularly after the last couple of nights. It’s quite nice to be able to simply move around the bar casually and not have to be constantly moving at 100 mph. We had a surprising number of people in the lounge when I arrived, watching The Masters on the projection screen. To anyone unfamiliar, that’s actually not a deep and engaging drama about manipulation of the populace on a global scale. It’s golf. I know, I know. Disappointing, right?
At any rate, it was still surprising to see the crowd. Part of it was taken up by a birthday party being held in the back part of the lounge. There’s about a dozen of them at this point in the day and they bring cupcakes to the bar staff as they’re cleaning up and starting to get done with things. Remember these people. They’ll play into the day’s tale later.
Once the daytime barkeep is out of the building and the shift change has concluded, I’ve gotten enough of a guage of things that I decide to just fix the floor mats my own damned self rather than wait for someone to yell at the dayside bar back loud enough to motivate him to care. We’re slow enough that it’ll get done, and won’t really inconvenience anyone doing it. It takes me all of 30 minutes, and suddenly the jagged, aztec motif sliding everywhere floor mats are back in their neat concise, relatively stationary line again, and I’m no longer in fear for my life. Time well spent, if you ask me.
The birthday party continues to dwindle down until there are four people. Every now and then the two hubbies (it’s a pair of couples) come up to the bar and get a round for the table. Maybe once or twice an hour at most. They’re not drinking that quickly. Again – keep remembering these guys.
One of my regulars asks I shift the TV over to some racing, now that the disappointingly misleading ‘Masters’ are done with, and so I do so.
Not long after that, our night side bar back is getting a case of beers out of the walk-in to stock my coolers a bit, and makes the mistake of not putting a hand underneath, and the box was a bit saggy and… welp… an entire case of beer falls through the bottom of the box onto the cooler floor and shatters quite impressively. I show him where the shattered glass bucket is, as this is a new but annoying experience for him, he lets Granny Nobs know about it, and they get it all cleaned up and squared away again.
Around dinner time, I go off for my half hour of downtime and Lydia, one of our two cocktail girls in residence last night covers the bar for me. Break passes inoffensively. I return. The party remnants continue to slowly drink and chatter in the background. Haven’t looked away yet, right? Good. Given how slow it is, Lydia petitions Granny Nobs to be freed to go back to civilian life early and to her complete surprise, has her request granted almost immediately.
This leaves the floor in the semi-capable hands of one of our newest cocktail girls, whom I’ll refer to as Haley. She’s one of those girls that while cute, had two kids at an extremely young age (no judgement there of course), and is playing catch-up constantly to try to have a semblance of a life. She also has that vibe that just comes across as being a Texas-sized drama festival simply waiting to occur. Even if I was single, I don’t think I’d go there. Too young, too not together, too prone to being triggered by everything, etc. Anyway.
So time passes.
I notice with some discomfort that our party remnants not only have not left yet, but that the women in the group (or one in particular at least) is starting to become loud and overly… jovial, let’s say. This is a problem. Being loud isn’t inherently a cause to cut someone off cold, but it’s almost always an indicator that I should have the keys in the launch console at the very least. It also means I’m going to go out of my way to not be Johnny-on-the-proverbial-spot with them. Time’s the only thing that will truly sober someone up, and I’ll buy as much of -that- commodity as I can. I hate to spoil someone’s party, but I don’t get fired for anyone, either.
So eventually the hubbies come back up to the bar and I enact one of my bartending powers. I issue a slowdown. I politely tell the guys that our security folks are starting to eyeball their table and they’d probably be well-advisded to shifting the volume level down, and that in order to help with this, we’re going to be slowing down the consumption rate from here out. Not cut off, but slowed down. They argue about it a little bit, which was another sign to take note of, but not with any seriousness so I’m hoping that we’ll simply take the warning to heart, enjoy the rest of our time, and then politely but calmly fuck off.
Sadly, this was not to be the case, but hey – I got story material for half of a diary entry out of it, so that’s a win, right?
Around this time, a few of our employee-regulars filter down to the bar and hang out on the high-dollar end where most people don’t play the machines. I’ve also got a couple sitting mid-bar, just playing poker and drinking some beers. The party people in the house (so to speak) who have been quiet for a good half hour or more stand up and start to walk off. One of them about faces and stalks over to the bar while a friend of hers tries (and fails) to get her to turn around. She approaches me and engages me in conversation in a voice that clearly says to me that a.) She’s totally had enough to drink, and b.) she’s trying oh-so-hard to do the nice pleasant voice and secretly bitingly snarky routine. I’m inwardly face-palming already. She quizzes me about myself, my supervisors, who runs the department, etc. I tell her what she wants to know as it’s public knowledge anyway, but I’m not going out of my way either to elucidate.
She eventually stalks off after making a point to clearly state her name to me (I’m gonna call her Magellen for reasons of internal humor), and I shake my head, but think hey, she’s fucking off now, so good. My beer drinkers volunteer and I agree, that it was a substantially strange discussion. Even with weekend drunks, it was the oddest conversation I’ve had in three days.
Some time after, one of our native regulars comes to the bar to complain about Haley’s habit of ignoring them as she’s doing her rounds. So I figure I’ll kill two birds with one stone, and call down Granny Nobs so that I can lay both bits of info onto her.
Before Granny can come to the bar, our party people return. they all file down and sit. They wish beverages. Now – they’ve been out of the bar and not drinking for over an hour at this point. They’re all technically clear to have a drink, by our rules of slowdown, and as the lady in question seems to have settled, I oblige them but keep their receipt set aside so I can watch their timing closely. Magellan doesn’t even notice her beer for a good 15 minutes, and I’m taking this as a positive. I’m also now mentally noting that she’s getting nothing else. That was really the last observational nail in her drinking coffin.
Granny Nobs enters and comes down to the end of the bar with our employee regulars where I’m standing. I discreetly fill her in on both the complaint, and the party people, Magellan in particular. Once she’s informed, I occasionally go down to that end to ring in a drink, but the crowd is so slow that I can generally stay away without any real complaint. Magellan eventually manages to rub a couple of disordered brain cells together and decides that she really wants another drink, so she does about the worst thing she could possibly do. Bear in mind here that she’s asked my name twice already. She should know this one. She yells out “Hey Ref!” across the bar. I’m pretty sure I know the look that crossed my face just then. It was some non-verbal equivalent of “Oh no you just didn’t….”
The nice thing about this is that I’ve got a bar full of witnesses. The bad thing is Magellan has now forced my hand. Ah well. Get it over with and all that. I walk down pleasantly and Magellan requests drinkies. I politey remind them that we’ll need to wait a while before the next one. (in much the same tone as I might tell a young child ‘maybe in a while, you can have some chocolate ice cream’, but we all know what I meant.) She proceeds to get again indignant and sweetly snarky. She comments at one point, “You are unbelieveable!” I turn it around, smile really big, and say “Thank you!” to her. She more openly snarks now, “That wasn’t a complement.” I laugh once, shake my head, smile, tell her to have a good evening, and walk off. I’m done.
Magellan and her hubby come down to the side of the bar where I’ve gone, because -she- wants to talk to my supervisor and Granny Nobs is right there. Their couple friends are nowhere to be seen. They want nothing to do with -this- action. Granny Nobs, as ever, backs up my choice, points out to the guests that the words used were ‘slowed down’, not ‘cut off’, and tried to play the appropriate cards that you’re supposed to in this situation, but truthfully this one of those times where aphorisms about lipstick on a pig come into play. There really just is very little point in trying to discuss something logically with a drunk. They aren’t equipped to engage on that level. It’s like trying to drink a steak.
Magellan and hubby eventually stalk off unhappily, and without further beverages. I make a point to note the exchange on our observation log because paper trails for the win, baby. In the event she actually remembers enough to be unhappy about the situation and tries to say something, our butts are suitably covered. We also have employee witnesses to the thing. No worries here, mate.
The rest of the night passes uneventfully, and compared to that bit of oddity, how could it do anything but that, I ask you? Good money is made, and our remaining guests go their own way eventually.
Closing observations :
- We fielded Magellan and company as well as we could, really, but geez. Must be a full moon straggler.
- I am -really- going to miss Granny Nobs. I get to work one more shift with her on Thursday.
Next up : Thursday night