Sunday, November 11, 2007

The Other Asshole; or Customer of the Night # 553

They say that a fool and his money are soon parted, but what they don't tell you is that an asshole and his money don't even get to say goodbye. This Guy (who was That Guy on this particular night) was dressed better than anybody else in the room, better than anybody at a football game ought to be, and every fifteen minutes or so I thought I had figured out who he was with. Except that he was apparently with everybody who would come within earshot, and he kept pulling out giant wads of cash and sidling up to especially young women at the bar and trying to buy them drinks. He wasn't that drunk at first, so I served him several rounds, but eventually I started motioning to whomever his latest victim was that he was cut off. This did not stop him from close talking every guy and inappropriately hitting on every girl (he was probably in his late thirties and was, frankly, in the wrong bar if he was looking for a date that night) in sight. Finally a group of girls got tired of him and, after he dropped fifty bucks on the bar to buy them a round of shots and turned his back, decided to spend it all. I didn't care, and obviously That Guy didn't either. They gave me a huge tip (from their own money) and ran away as soon as they could. This happened several times during the night: That Guy puts down money, latest victim gets drink, That Guy and victim do the shot, change gets left on the bar, and That Guy disappears to find another victim. It really did make up for the other folks that weren't tipping very well (see previous post).
I didn't want to kick That Guy out because he was mostly harmless but very drunk, and I thought it would be more of a hassle than necessary for our door staff, who had their hands full as it was. In the end, though, I had to. He came up at around one thirty and ordered a shot from the other bartender. I was busy at the other end of the bar and before I could get the other bartender's attention to tell him that I had cut That Guy off, he had already poured one. That Guy drank it, the other bartender walked away, and about ten or twenty seconds later, as I walked past That Guy, he spit his shot back out on the bar. I asked the door guys to remove him gently and they did. When I stepped outside at two to get a breath of fresh air before cleaning, I saw That Guy and the Blonde Douchebag. They were talking so close to each other's faces that I thought they were about to fight. No such luck. They were just so drunk they didn't realize how close they were to making out.

In other news, the b.h. found an excellent new blog. The link to Hot Knives (featuring two vegetarian line cooks from L.A.) is over there on your left. Check it out. The Grilled Cheese post from April 2006 was particularly amusing.

3 comments:

Z said...

Hot Knives is excellent - thanks for the link.

It seems that TG and BD were well matched. Can't have been pleasant for you at the time, but very entertaining story.

heybartender said...

That's how I get through all the bullshit, honestly. i just think about how funny it will be in retrospect.

Jamie said...

I love Hot Knives! If you're going to cook vegan food, by God you might as well saturate it in alcohol. The videos especially make me happy.