Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Tending Bar, New Friends and Old Friends (12/3/05)

Did nothing all day yesterday until work. Haven’t been to the bar in several weeks. I was pleasantly surprised to see the waitresses making up my garnishes. Saves me like 45 minutes of work. Was even more pleasantly surprised to see that I did not have to fix too much in the beer cooler. There is no weekday bartender so usually on Fridays there is a huge mess from all week with like a whole mess of Bud Select and Amstel Light (both of which NO ONE buys) and maybe 2 Coronas, Bud Lites, Kirins, etc. (the most popular ones) Really didn’t have to pull too much back stock either. They had actually brought out extra bottles of almost everything we were low on! And I even had a bar rag waiting for me and the ice was full. Guess I’m finally training these people right!

The only thing I really had to do was the weekly milk test. We don’t use too much milk at the bar so we pour a little into leftover sour mix containers. Since that means the milk out front isn’t dated, I first must remove the cap and sniff. Sometimes it passes the smell test but sometimes it smells like it might be starting to go so then I have to pour a little into a rocks glass and taste it. I always dread that part. It was a taste day. But as I poured it into the rocks glass it came out in clumps. So didn’t have to taste it after all. Threw that all away and got some fresh milk for the weekend.

It was pretty slow the first couple of hours so Stacey the hostess and I watched Coyote Ugly on TV. Stacey’s really cool. She is so me when I was in high school. I’ll have to write more about her sometime. Got some pity texts from my friends. (I always beg them to text me when I’m tending bar in case it’s slow.)

Also got a drunk phone call from this guy I know from school. He’s like, “Hey! What are you doing? Where you working? Where you living? Wanna do something now?” I’m like, “Ummm, I’m working. In the same town where I live. Can’t do anything because I’m working.” Then he talked to me for about five minutes about how Whit and I are pretty sweet ladies (or something like that) and he’s all alone since he moved here and all his friends are half the state away so he though it would be cool to hang out with us only he’s shy but a bottle of wine and a corkscrew took care of that problem so here he is talking to me. I felt bad I couldn’t hang out with him because he’s pretty nice and he lets Whit and I pick on him, which is always a good quality for someone to have. And I’ve been there, not having any friends around. So I texted him later that maybe next weekend we could do something.

It got busy for awhile. I’m always happier when it’s busier, as long as it’s not crazy. Got a couple at the bar, where the woman wants to be a bartender. Every weekend I get either someone who wants to be a bartender or is a bartender. One guy got a $6 drink and gave me a $5 tip so that was pretty sweet. Slowed down right about the time Stacey left, which totally sucks because the last hour and a half after she leaves is always the slowest. There was one guy left at the bar eating his sushi and we were making conversation about how there was no need for UConn to be kicking Texas Southern’s ass as bad as they were.

Then this guy walks in and goes, “Is it ok if I sit at the bar to eat or do I need to sit at a table?” And I looked at him all squinty eyed for a minute and then said, “Sure, Steve. You can sit at my bar.” Okay. Total freakiness. This Steve I haven’t seen in like 7 years at least. Haven’t seen anyone from high school in forever and then I run into Jason Thursday and now Steve tonight. We spent a good hour catching up with each other. We were part of the same group in high school but were never really close. Now he’s turned into a pretty cool guy. He and his best friend are still doing the same thing they did in high school (magic, juggling, comedy act) and are actually making a living at it.

So I was telling the UConn guy about how freaky this was, seeing two people after so long and the guy goes, “Well you know what this means,” and holds up 3 fingers. “You’re going to meet one more. These things come in threes.” I just kind of laughed and blew it off. Time for me to go home but Steve, who was staying at his parents’ house for the weekend, didn’t want to go home until they were asleep, so we went to a bar down the road for a couple of drinks. We were there for a little while and as we are getting up to leave, we turn around and holy crap! There is this girl Jen from high school.

Now I could see this happening like on Thanksgiving, or something like that. But here are three people I was friends with a long time ago (from three separate groups, too, not friends with each other) in two days. This is just weird. Got all of their contact info so now I’ve got lots to do over winter break catching up with everyone. Maybe I don’t need a job after all.

Oh, and how freaky is it that UConn guy was right?

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