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(Cookies, booze and twenty-five Internets to the first one to get the reference in the thread title.)
It's a good thing I'm on vacation next week. After tonight, I at least need to get out of the city to try to regain some sort of foothold on this planet. Lots of shit tonight. Lots. All the running around I ended up doing today, it's a miracle I still have them, let alone boots to put on them.
Me: Ooh, Thorazine! Mix it with some orange juice and serve on ice. Serves one.
SC: You folks know the drill.
CC: There's an SC born every minute, and hopefully two CCs to keep them from doing something stupid. Hardly works...
R: The overworked manager. One of these days, we're just gonna clobber him and drag him to the coast.
Ri: Don't mess with The Hat, 'cause The Hat don't mess with shee-yit.
T: The door girl with the same tastes as I do.
SCo: Sucky Contractor. Since he's technically as much a part of the bar as the rest of us, I'm counting him as a coworker for the sake of brevity (such as it's gonna be in this post...)
F: 'Flea' runs the elevator, fills the ice bins, restocks the beer, and I'm amazed he hasn't run himself through yet.
SD: Stupid Driver. You'll see why in a minute.
Sucky Customers / Cursing out Coworkers: Third-party-pooper
SC came by from the nearby hotel and wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes. Okay, no problem. Okay, one problem: SCo, who's supposed to keep the machine stocked, has been even more pissy about the upcoming smoking ban down here than I have, so not only has he not bothered to restock the machine completely, but he's removed half of the available brands each time he shows up to restock the machine. We're lucky to have Marlboro Lights half the time, and a smart person would at least stock those.
SC: I didn't get the cigarettes.
Me: Why not? (And don't tell me they're out of the Marlboro Lights again...)
SC: They're $7. And I asked the guy (probably Ri) what would happen if they didn't have my brand and if he'd give me my money back, and he said the only one who can do that is SCo, and he won't be in until tomorrow night.
Me: Sorry. Honestly, the guy who stocks that thing has been worried about the s--
SC: And I bummed a cigarette off a guy back at the hotel, and I wanted to try to pay him back for it, but I guess I can't, because...
Me: I wish I could help out, but... you said you wanted Marlboro Lights?
SC: Yeah.
(All I smoke on shift are either Camel Wides, Marlboro Reds or Golden Blend Non-Filters, depending on what kind of night I think it's gonna be. I pull out my pack of Wides and offer him one.
SC: No, I wanted to get him a Marlboro Light, because that's what he gave me and it was his last one.
Me: ...
SC: No, it's alright. Thanks anyway.
SC walks off. Had he given me a chance, I could've pointed him to a convenience store not even a few blocks away. His loss.
Roadkill / Sightings: Blessed Are The Fucking Stupid
An hour after my shift started, I'm in the middle of carding a couple of new customers while F is on the phone with one of his bandmates. Right when I hand the customers their IDs back, CRASH! Speed-limit impact nearby. All of us run over to the corner and we saw something I always knew I'd end up seeing, but didn't want to anyway. Someone had gone the wrong way on the one-way leading to our bar, at the intersection where Rivalbar is at, and SD's car ran into another, ending up on its driver's-side door.
Me: F! Go and help them with crowd control! I'll go get R!
I run inside, find R and let him know about the accident and how severe it is. We both run back outside, R checking out the accident while I keep the customers inside the bar. F runs back over to me and tells me that some of the customers from Rivalbar flipped the car back onto its wheels. There was still someone inside that car!
Me: Oh, shit. Someone closer to the accident would've called it in by now. What about the other driver and passengers? Are they alright?
F: I think so, but someone was lying down on the sidewalk nearby.
Me: ...fuck. Alright, head back inside; T and I can watch the doors.
I'll say this about emergency services down here: they're fast when they want to be. PD was there within five minutes, with Fire and EMS following close behind. One of the advantages of having police HQ, two fire stations and a hospital nearby, I guess. During breaks in customer flow, I kept on checking the scene of the accident. SD's car was completely totalled. The windshield had completely spider-webbed, the windows were gone, the front end was obliterated up to the front of the engine block. The other car got off light compared to that, losing just a headlight and knocking the front bumper partially off. The woman who was lying down on the sidewalk, though, is in the hospital right now. I've got my fingers crossed that her injuries are just whiplash and a concussion, because as damaged as the cars were after the impact, they could be a lot worse.
As far as why this is a Sighting in addition to Roadkill: the part where Rivalbar's customers flipped the car right-side up again is considered tampering with the scene of an accident. If the police find out who thought they were doing SD a favor, they could be in deep shit. On top of that, as I said before, there was someone trapped in the car, and flipping it onto its wheels could've resulted in making their injuries a lot more severe, if not flat-out life threatening.
Brain Burps: No, sweetie. It won't open if you smile at it, either.
T closed her door around 1:00 as usual. When she does, anyone who goes outside and wants to go back upstairs has to do it through my door. Her door is a one-way exit door with no way to open it from the outside. SC and CC walk up to my door, and they're wearing the wristbands T gave them earlier when they paid to go up.
CC: Hi, uh, how do I get back upstairs?
Me: Just walk in through my door, make a left. The stairs are gonna be through the first door on the left once you're inside.
CC: Okay--
She doesn't even get to finish the sentence, since SC's walking towards the closed door.
CC: Hey! We gotta go in through this door!
SC keeps walking towards the other door.
Me: That door's closed!
SC reaches the gate and tries to open it. Oops, it won't open. Imagine that.
SC: So how do I get upstairs?
Me: Through my door. Walk in, go left, stairs through the first doorway. (Avoid the closet. The closet leads to a place with talking lions.)
CC: He even told you, SC!
They both walk in. It takes about three minutes for my eye to stop twitching after that.
Sucky Customers: Walk-out FAIL
During Last Call, a couple walks out of my door. SC is hanging onto his wife's shoulder like she's guiding him out, and I'm about to wish them on their merry way, when I notice that the hand on SC's wife's shoulder is also holding a longneck.
Me: Can't leave with that.
SC: Wha? Can't leave with what?
Me: That beer.
SC: Oh! Oh, shit, I can't leave with it?
Me: Nope. Just step back through the gate and finish it here. If it makes you feel any better, though, that was actually a good try. Most of the drinks I've stopped lately, the people don't even bother trying to hide them.
How drunk do you have to be to not feel condensation on a cold beer bottle? SC takes one last drink from it, throws the bottle away, and takes off with his wife again. Not surprisingly, he's not pretending to use her as a crutch anymore.
General Work Chat: I Can Stop Worrying Now
Like I mentioned in the cast, I'm on vacation next week, and so is T. Since I've got someone picked out to watch my door while I'm out of town, Ri's niece has been training at T's door. She's awesome, too: we didn't have to explain anything more than once to her, she knows all of us by name, and she's accurate when it comes to her drawer.
Of course, that means that she'll have to deal with show-related SCs while we're out...
And now, the decompression can begin. That has been, far and away, the most stressful night I've ever had since I started at that door.
It's a good thing I'm on vacation next week. After tonight, I at least need to get out of the city to try to regain some sort of foothold on this planet. Lots of shit tonight. Lots. All the running around I ended up doing today, it's a miracle I still have them, let alone boots to put on them.
Me: Ooh, Thorazine! Mix it with some orange juice and serve on ice. Serves one.
SC: You folks know the drill.
CC: There's an SC born every minute, and hopefully two CCs to keep them from doing something stupid. Hardly works...
R: The overworked manager. One of these days, we're just gonna clobber him and drag him to the coast.
Ri: Don't mess with The Hat, 'cause The Hat don't mess with shee-yit.
T: The door girl with the same tastes as I do.
SCo: Sucky Contractor. Since he's technically as much a part of the bar as the rest of us, I'm counting him as a coworker for the sake of brevity (such as it's gonna be in this post...)
F: 'Flea' runs the elevator, fills the ice bins, restocks the beer, and I'm amazed he hasn't run himself through yet.
SD: Stupid Driver. You'll see why in a minute.
Sucky Customers / Cursing out Coworkers: Third-party-pooper
SC came by from the nearby hotel and wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes. Okay, no problem. Okay, one problem: SCo, who's supposed to keep the machine stocked, has been even more pissy about the upcoming smoking ban down here than I have, so not only has he not bothered to restock the machine completely, but he's removed half of the available brands each time he shows up to restock the machine. We're lucky to have Marlboro Lights half the time, and a smart person would at least stock those.
SC: I didn't get the cigarettes.
Me: Why not? (And don't tell me they're out of the Marlboro Lights again...)
SC: They're $7. And I asked the guy (probably Ri) what would happen if they didn't have my brand and if he'd give me my money back, and he said the only one who can do that is SCo, and he won't be in until tomorrow night.
Me: Sorry. Honestly, the guy who stocks that thing has been worried about the s--
SC: And I bummed a cigarette off a guy back at the hotel, and I wanted to try to pay him back for it, but I guess I can't, because...
Me: I wish I could help out, but... you said you wanted Marlboro Lights?
SC: Yeah.
(All I smoke on shift are either Camel Wides, Marlboro Reds or Golden Blend Non-Filters, depending on what kind of night I think it's gonna be. I pull out my pack of Wides and offer him one.
SC: No, I wanted to get him a Marlboro Light, because that's what he gave me and it was his last one.
Me: ...
SC: No, it's alright. Thanks anyway.
SC walks off. Had he given me a chance, I could've pointed him to a convenience store not even a few blocks away. His loss.
Roadkill / Sightings: Blessed Are The Fucking Stupid
An hour after my shift started, I'm in the middle of carding a couple of new customers while F is on the phone with one of his bandmates. Right when I hand the customers their IDs back, CRASH! Speed-limit impact nearby. All of us run over to the corner and we saw something I always knew I'd end up seeing, but didn't want to anyway. Someone had gone the wrong way on the one-way leading to our bar, at the intersection where Rivalbar is at, and SD's car ran into another, ending up on its driver's-side door.
Me: F! Go and help them with crowd control! I'll go get R!
I run inside, find R and let him know about the accident and how severe it is. We both run back outside, R checking out the accident while I keep the customers inside the bar. F runs back over to me and tells me that some of the customers from Rivalbar flipped the car back onto its wheels. There was still someone inside that car!
Me: Oh, shit. Someone closer to the accident would've called it in by now. What about the other driver and passengers? Are they alright?
F: I think so, but someone was lying down on the sidewalk nearby.
Me: ...fuck. Alright, head back inside; T and I can watch the doors.
I'll say this about emergency services down here: they're fast when they want to be. PD was there within five minutes, with Fire and EMS following close behind. One of the advantages of having police HQ, two fire stations and a hospital nearby, I guess. During breaks in customer flow, I kept on checking the scene of the accident. SD's car was completely totalled. The windshield had completely spider-webbed, the windows were gone, the front end was obliterated up to the front of the engine block. The other car got off light compared to that, losing just a headlight and knocking the front bumper partially off. The woman who was lying down on the sidewalk, though, is in the hospital right now. I've got my fingers crossed that her injuries are just whiplash and a concussion, because as damaged as the cars were after the impact, they could be a lot worse.
As far as why this is a Sighting in addition to Roadkill: the part where Rivalbar's customers flipped the car right-side up again is considered tampering with the scene of an accident. If the police find out who thought they were doing SD a favor, they could be in deep shit. On top of that, as I said before, there was someone trapped in the car, and flipping it onto its wheels could've resulted in making their injuries a lot more severe, if not flat-out life threatening.
Brain Burps: No, sweetie. It won't open if you smile at it, either.
T closed her door around 1:00 as usual. When she does, anyone who goes outside and wants to go back upstairs has to do it through my door. Her door is a one-way exit door with no way to open it from the outside. SC and CC walk up to my door, and they're wearing the wristbands T gave them earlier when they paid to go up.
CC: Hi, uh, how do I get back upstairs?
Me: Just walk in through my door, make a left. The stairs are gonna be through the first door on the left once you're inside.
CC: Okay--
She doesn't even get to finish the sentence, since SC's walking towards the closed door.
CC: Hey! We gotta go in through this door!
SC keeps walking towards the other door.
Me: That door's closed!
SC reaches the gate and tries to open it. Oops, it won't open. Imagine that.
SC: So how do I get upstairs?
Me: Through my door. Walk in, go left, stairs through the first doorway. (Avoid the closet. The closet leads to a place with talking lions.)
CC: He even told you, SC!
They both walk in. It takes about three minutes for my eye to stop twitching after that.
Sucky Customers: Walk-out FAIL
During Last Call, a couple walks out of my door. SC is hanging onto his wife's shoulder like she's guiding him out, and I'm about to wish them on their merry way, when I notice that the hand on SC's wife's shoulder is also holding a longneck.
Me: Can't leave with that.
SC: Wha? Can't leave with what?
Me: That beer.
SC: Oh! Oh, shit, I can't leave with it?
Me: Nope. Just step back through the gate and finish it here. If it makes you feel any better, though, that was actually a good try. Most of the drinks I've stopped lately, the people don't even bother trying to hide them.
How drunk do you have to be to not feel condensation on a cold beer bottle? SC takes one last drink from it, throws the bottle away, and takes off with his wife again. Not surprisingly, he's not pretending to use her as a crutch anymore.
General Work Chat: I Can Stop Worrying Now
Like I mentioned in the cast, I'm on vacation next week, and so is T. Since I've got someone picked out to watch my door while I'm out of town, Ri's niece has been training at T's door. She's awesome, too: we didn't have to explain anything more than once to her, she knows all of us by name, and she's accurate when it comes to her drawer.
Of course, that means that she'll have to deal with show-related SCs while we're out...
And now, the decompression can begin. That has been, far and away, the most stressful night I've ever had since I started at that door.
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