Background: my bar, along with a few others owned by the same company, offers a self-guided pub crawl/drinking "challenge." In essence, if you do a specified drink at each of the bars involved, and get your (absolutely free) challenge card marked at each of the bars, you get a free t-shirt. Yes, it's shameless self-promotion, but people love doing it, so everyone's happy. Each bar has one particular drink pictured on the card, but all but one of the bars allows for other options. My bar, for example, lists our namesake drink, but allows participants to choose from any of our approximately twenty specialty drinks. Because we're cool like that. Everyone with me so far? Okay, good. Cue the Blithering Idiots. Today the Blithering Idiots will be played by a group of clueless twentysomething girls, and the Bartenders will be played by my coworkers, Nice Guy Eddie and Curly Sue.
The Blithering Idiots were in at happy hour, drinking discounted happy hour beers. They drank, they paid, they left. They came back a bit later, when the bar was busy. They walked up to Eddie and said, holding out some challenge cards, said, "We need our cards punched." Knowing they had been there earlier, and thinking he remembered them, Eddie asked, "Weren't you ladies drinking beers here?" Yep. "I'm sorry, but we can only punch the cards for specialty drinks." They just stood there and stared at him, so figuring he'd explained it well enough, and since the bar was busy, he walked away to help other customers.
Sue, unaware of this interaction, approached shortly thereafter, seeing the girls standing there. Remembering them, Sue said, "Hi! Back again? What can I do for you?"
Blithering Idiots: "We were in earlier, and we need our cards punched."
Sue: "Weren't you drinking happy hour beers?"
Blithering Idiots: "Yes."
Sue: "I'm sorry, but we can only punch those cards for specialty drinks. Never beer, and definitely not happy hour beer."
Blithering Idiots: "But it says right here that 'other options' may be offered."
Sue: "Yesssss....and the other options are any of our specialty drinks."
Blithering Idiots: "Well, we still want our cards punched."
Sue: "Sure thing. Just have any of our specialty drinks, and I'll be more than happy to do to that."
Blithering Idiots: "We don't want to get more drinks. We want to get our cards punched for what we had earlier."
Sue: "You had discounted happy hour beers earlier. I can't punch your cards for that."
Blithering Idiots: "Well, we'll just see what the legal system has to say about that."
Sue: (stares at them, not believing they're serious)
Blithering Idiots: (stare right back at Sue, serious as a heart attack)
Sue: (walks away to take care of other customers who weren't going to waste her time with such ridiculous bullshit)
The Blithering Idiots did not get their cards punched. Personally, I would love to be a fly on the wall when they approach a lawyer about their "case," a dispute over which drinks qualify them for a free fucking t-shirt. Here's a hint to people like this: when a bar or bars sponsor a contest or promotion like this, here's a simple rule of thumb: their game, they make the rules. For those who refuse to accept this simple rule of thumb here's another one: go fuck yourself.
The Blithering Idiots were in at happy hour, drinking discounted happy hour beers. They drank, they paid, they left. They came back a bit later, when the bar was busy. They walked up to Eddie and said, holding out some challenge cards, said, "We need our cards punched." Knowing they had been there earlier, and thinking he remembered them, Eddie asked, "Weren't you ladies drinking beers here?" Yep. "I'm sorry, but we can only punch the cards for specialty drinks." They just stood there and stared at him, so figuring he'd explained it well enough, and since the bar was busy, he walked away to help other customers.
Sue, unaware of this interaction, approached shortly thereafter, seeing the girls standing there. Remembering them, Sue said, "Hi! Back again? What can I do for you?"
Blithering Idiots: "We were in earlier, and we need our cards punched."
Sue: "Weren't you drinking happy hour beers?"
Blithering Idiots: "Yes."
Sue: "I'm sorry, but we can only punch those cards for specialty drinks. Never beer, and definitely not happy hour beer."
Blithering Idiots: "But it says right here that 'other options' may be offered."
Sue: "Yesssss....and the other options are any of our specialty drinks."
Blithering Idiots: "Well, we still want our cards punched."
Sue: "Sure thing. Just have any of our specialty drinks, and I'll be more than happy to do to that."
Blithering Idiots: "We don't want to get more drinks. We want to get our cards punched for what we had earlier."
Sue: "You had discounted happy hour beers earlier. I can't punch your cards for that."
Blithering Idiots: "Well, we'll just see what the legal system has to say about that."
Sue: (stares at them, not believing they're serious)
Blithering Idiots: (stare right back at Sue, serious as a heart attack)
Sue: (walks away to take care of other customers who weren't going to waste her time with such ridiculous bullshit)
The Blithering Idiots did not get their cards punched. Personally, I would love to be a fly on the wall when they approach a lawyer about their "case," a dispute over which drinks qualify them for a free fucking t-shirt. Here's a hint to people like this: when a bar or bars sponsor a contest or promotion like this, here's a simple rule of thumb: their game, they make the rules. For those who refuse to accept this simple rule of thumb here's another one: go fuck yourself.

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