Bitch, I Will Put You in a Nursing Home

Last night seemed to be a night for the crazy folk to come out and play. I'm not quite sure why, it wasn't a Sunday or a full moon (always weird) but there was a distinctly odd feeling about everyone. On top of that, the staff were in full on strange mode and the streetlights were out for about an hour. On the whole, though, people were lovely, except for one crazy bitch who makes up my story.

She was there almost all night at a table with several of my favourite regulars and they were in my section. I was at the table a fair bit; these are regulars who spend money and appreciate being well-looked after. Anyway, even early on there was something weird about this one woman, let's just call her Crazy. Well Crazy had a mean case of the crazy-eyes and she was one of those women who refuse to acknowledge waitstaff. That pisses me off to begin with, but the guy she was there with was nice enough to make up for it. They were drinking Dog Point Sauvignon Blanc (from 2010, fruity, from Marlborough) by the bottle, so didn't require a whole lot of checking up on but I was walking around and stopping in with them every so often after the regulars left. It was on one of these general "Can I get you another drink/something to eat/more water/clear anything finished?" stop ins where the woman looked up at me and shouted "Go away! Just go away!" to me whilst flicking her hand dismissively. This is when my bitch came out. "Fuck it," I figured, "may as well give her what she wants." So I did. I kept joking with and serving every other table in my six table section but them. They could pour their own damn wine. Roughly ten minutes later, Crazy starts crying, while sitting at her table. I hate women who do this, it makes me and everyone who notices it uncomfortable. Crazy went to the bathroom where  the other waitress (Mary-Jane) overheard her wailing about how the waitresses were so young and "he" (presumably the thoroughly middle aged man she was with) was "looking at them".

Well this answered some questions, namely why my presence anywhere near their table seemed to so upset her. But I kept doing my thing, until I went to start closing so Mary-Jane was on the floor. Well she knew what had happened but only sort of and Crazy's water glass had been empty for nearly twenty minutes. So Mary-Jane went over to fill it up and the same thing happened. She came into the kitchen to tell me, wondering if she'd done something wrong. Now this pissed me off more than when Crazy first pulled that shit. Mary-Jane is far newer to the game than I am and therefore not yet jaded. She's also lovely, friendly and genuinely cares about her customers. For this hag of a woman to make her think she was the one at fault made me livid. But there was nothing I could really tell Mary-Jane, other than to punch Crazy in her dried-up ovaries. So I let the manager and the bouncer know that she was drunk and told Mary-Jane to do what I'd done and simply not serve them.

Later, when we (Cookie, The Boy and I) had finished staffies and were walking home we saw something beautiful. Crazy and her man thing arguing in a doorway just down from my bar. I heard man thing say "I'd like you more if you weren't such a bitch" and "Just knock! You're not staying with me so you can either knock or sleep on the street." The police were on their way over as we walked past. Karma is sweeter than revenge.

All My Hats

I'm done with work for the week! Well, sort of, I have this thing to go to with some of the staff tonight; a new bar/restaurant has just opened across the street from us and gave us tickets to their opening party. Bring on the free food and booze! Being a waitress is so glamourous (ha-fucking-ha).

Anyway, so over the last 20ish hours I've worked I've done lots of different things. Generally I'm a waitress and that's all I do; I talk to people a lot and I carry stuff. But since we've cut down on the number of staff on at any given time, I get to do way more things. Last night I got to be on the door while A was inside looking for his missing wedding ring (I got to check IDs and everything). Friday night I got to bartend when it got busy suddenly and Mother Hen was ordering stock, I figured I'd help out Cookie and The Boy. That brings me to my little anecdote of the day.

I am not a bartender; I can make mixed drinks just fine and even a few cocktails, I can pour wine (who can't?) and beer from a bottle. Tap beer is a mystery to me, there's all the tilting and foam and it's too much effort. Anywho, I was over at 120 (the end of the bar) and a guy there asked me for a Jim Beam and L&P (for those non-Kiwis, it's a lemon flavoured soft drink). I explained we don't have L&P and his options as far as mixer goes are Coke, Diet Coke, lemonade, ginger beer, ginger ale and any weird variety of juice. This is when his arsehole factor became apparent. He started going on about how he's been "coming here for years" and why don't we have any L&P? I replied that I don't know about multiple years, but I know for sure we haven't had L&P in at least two. I also said that he's more than welcome to go across the road to a convenience store, buy a bottle of L&P and we'll keep it chilled for him and make his drinks with that. He settled on Jim Beam and ginger ale. I made his drink in front of him and got the portable Eftpos for him to pay, upon which he informed me that he wanted it in a smaller glass. Now at my bar, the tall glasses and the short glasses are actually the same volume, so if I'd made it tall and he wanted it short it wouldn't have been an issue. But unless the customer says otherwise, I will always make bourbon and rum mixed drinks in a short glass, this guy wanted a whiskey glass. It was 3 in the morning, we'd done last call and I could not be fucked with arseholes at this point. I politely (not really) informed him that if he'd wanted it in a smaller glass, he had ample time to tell me that when I was making the drink in front of him, not when it came time to pay and he could either take it and pay or leave it.

He paid the $9 and shut up. I think I'd make an awesome bitchy bartender.