I told myself I wouldn't do this. I keep my personal life public and my public life personal. Yet, this has been one helluva wacky week.
Truth be told, I'm nowhere near perfect. As a matter of fact, I'm about as screwed in the head and gut as any one person can be. However, I placed myself in a position, a job, profession, whatever the hell you care to deem it, in order to not only keep my own sanity but maybe bring a bit of sanity to those I come in contact with.
Ok, ok... so the ones I come in contact with are drinking. And the profession I've migrated into is 'bartender', 'bar manager', 'intoxicologist'..... whatever. The profession is a far cry from what I once did and who I once was. But that's irrelevant and national security prevents me from elaborating.
Yet, I begin every shift, every day, with the intention of making someone smile, laugh or feel better, despite their circumstances, as the warm nectar of life glides through their lower intestines before finding its' way back into the brain, rendering it useless.
Hell, I do unto others as I'd do unto myself. It's the golden tequila rule, right?
I consider myself a provider. I provide a respite from a hard day's work. A respite from a relationship's delicate moments. A respite from life and its' bullshit.
Yet, despite my best intentions... my best attempts to foster a smile or happy evening, there is always one who either begins the day with an attitude of haughtiness or wants to end the night with an attitude of haughtiness. Ones who deem others, including myself, as less than themselves... in my case, a servant, a knave, a being to be spat upon as one would expect in a Monty Python skit.
This has happened to me thrice, that's three times for the unititiated, this week. Twice, it was due to alcohol. I'm ok with that. Alcohol is the great deciever... it makes men invincible and Snooki do-able.
But once, just yesterday, it made one gentleman, nay, gentleman is an overstatement, a complete asshole. Not because he drank too much, but because he expected me to be his servant. To be at his beck and call. Horror of horrors, he had to wait a matter of minutes before he was offered his third Crown Royal and Seven-Up. Woo. What kind of big shot drinks Crown and 7 anyway?
Yet, this dick of dicks, a man of means, apparently, who viewed me as slow, incompetent and unworthy of caring for his cheap alcoholic needs, berated me for leaving him to palm a glass of ice as I tended to others and their needs.
This, of course, brought to mind others in my past who expected the same, minus the Crown Royal but just as cold with icy veins.
The images of self-deprication and words, 'I'm perfect. You're not' flooded into my brain, filling me with that unholy yet ungodly elation of mania as I bit my lip. Yes, I bit my lip. The thoughts I had as this cheap-smelling, tattooed man wearing a shirt purchased at K-Mart smacking of the worst Nat Nast knockoff, asked for his check, left no tip and eyed me with a look of contempt were bursting from my overzealous mind. I stared him in the eye and visually dared him to push me further into the abyss which is the smartass, intellectual self that I am. I could have easily placed him firmly in the IQ range of 80- that he obviously belongs.... but, I didn't. He did that to himself.
Just as those before him in my life have so easily and readily done, he placed himself in a position of not being able to respond to reason and humility.
Working a bar isn't always fun. As a matter of fact, working a bar is a way of remembering not only who I am but what I've become. It's a wake-up call. And, it's a wake up call for those who challenge me when I firmly say, ".....you, you're done, get the fuck outta my bar. No one talks to me that way. Not now, not ever...."
I like people. I love stories. I have a helluva story myself. But, respect ... respect is a two way street and Main street is a one way street. Think about it and act accordingly. I'll call ya on it otherwise, like it or not. Customer or not. Family or not.
Life is a bar and we're all looped on an idea of some sort. Sleep it off and see me tomorrow. I'll still be here and I'll still welcome you back to my bar.
Cheers.
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