Why is it that drunk people always think that they can do things that any “normal,” sober person wouldn’t even think of doing? After having essentially lived right there, at that bar for years I have developed a kind of routine so to speak. I start every day with the following assumptions: the sun will rise and eventually set, Europeans rarely tip, a homeless person will approach me asking for change at least 3 times through-out the day, and that I will witness a drunk person doing something plainly stupid. This act of stupidity will happen at any point throughout the day. It may happen the second that I leave my apartment building, across the street, 5 feet away, or 5 hours into the night’s shift. Regardless, drunks make the city and world that I live in go round, so I deal.
For some reason, in a room full of drunks, there is always the guy that has to pee. By pee, I mean that they must pee on something, anyone, anything, anywhere, but not in a toilet or urinal because that would make logical sense. These gentlemen are often of a certain kind of breed. It is often the ex-frat bro-douches that do this, but this act is not just limited to them. About a year back, I see this guy, who looks like a regular guy, even slightly more attractive than the average Joe, not that this is relevant, but one must get a fully painted picture to visualize the event. He is tall and a bit white trashy, with shaved blonde hair. This is the type of guy who probably has a tribal tattoo on his forearm and probably a pack of menthols in his back pocket. He looks similar to Matt Damon with a crew cut, with Eminem’s thug-wanna be style, complimented with a tattoo of a rose on his neck, next to a tattoo of what I assume to be his area code in Gangsta-font, incase he gets lost. In the middle of a busy bar, right next to the bartending station, he just whips out his penis and just starts pissing right there. Like a dog he just pees all over the floor. He does it like it’s normal for a grown man to pee on the floor in the middle of a crowded bar. What is even more astonishing, is the fact that in a room full of drunks, not a single person says or notices this guy treating the floor near the bar station like a fire hydrant. No one even glances his way, to give him a sneer of disgust, as I would expect. They are all too absorbed in their own lame conversations. This is until one queen with frosted tips screams as they notice their Diesel shoes getting wet and blows this guy’s cover. By scream, I mean a pitch barely audible to humans and so high that most dogs would be on alert. The ironic part is that while this is not an isolated event, but goes on to happen every Friday for 3 months, all different dudes.
There is another drunken fool who comes in during our busy Friday two-for-one happy hours. In San Francisco, where the gays are alcoholics and they are cheaper than a Jew in a 99cent store at the day after Christmas clearance rack, this drink special works as a gold mine for bars and is the best time to work. This is the easiest and hardest time to make fast money to pay your rent, if you can survive the craziness that ensues. Anyway, there is this guy who comes in every weekend since the bar opened 8-years ago. This man is a rather rotund slob who resembles Jabba-the-Hut, so we shall call him “Jabba” since I don’t know or care to know his real name. Jabba works his way around the bar in his wheelchair. He is an average looking guy surrounded by his own fat that is probably around forty-five-ish at the oldest. Normally I am not one to talk poorly about the physically challenged but in this guy’s case, he is a flat out perv./asshole. He always whirls around the bar trashed regardless of how busy it is and makes his way to the dance floor. Normally I am one to applaud those who defy the odds life has handed them, but really, I mean, who dances with a wheel chair in a crowded bar? If this isn’t enough, not only does he dance on the floor in his wheelchair, which normally I have no issue with, but he uses it as a lethal weapon. It’s like his way of getting back at those who have two working legs. He get’s right in the middle and whirls around, knocking everyone around him in the shins, this in turn also clears the dance floor. Many people end up walking off the floor with burst, cut up shins, limping off to get some medication (a drink) and complain about the whole fiasco to me, like I can do anything about it. To make things worse, dancing Jabba also slowly pushes the joystick on his chair as he is cruising his way through, in the same fashion that Vattos cruise down streets to “holler at bitches.” He pinches every ass-cheek, cock and tits that get in his way. To make things worse, you can smell him coming from a few feet away. His odor is very distinct, like raw meat that has spoiled, covered in that rotten egg-sulfur smell that only induces the gagging feeling more when he passes by. This just adds to my disgust for Jabba. Then after a few pints he leaves a restroom even more vomitalicious than it is prior to his visit. He does the unexpected. He leaves pint glasses all over the various restrooms and bar, filled with the piss that he empties out from his catheter. It makes no sense. Again, a sane, maybe less drunken person would empty that crap into a toilet or near-by lawn (if outside), but not this guy.
I come into work knowing that I should always be ready for the worst, having experienced all sorts of drunken crazies in their natural habitat. I generally assume that I personally have the ammo needed to survive these for various situations both mentally and physically, without ruining my day or my tips for the day. Anything that will get in the way of me making my rent/bad habit money will get me angry. I keep the Eminem wannabe and Jabba in the back of my mind as awareness of what may happen and stay prepared and remember that I am the one who has carried these people out often and kept my cool. Generally, I take some time to myself before work to do my own version of meditation for this reason alone, the maintenance of sanity or at least the closest thing I know to it. Depending on the day, year, week and what’s going on in my life this may include a cigarette, maybe a piece of chocolate. Always, always, always there is a cup of coffee or shot of espresso during this meditation period. I just sit, sip and watch passerby heading to bars, or walking from them as they trip over their own feet upon exit. I sit for 15-20 minutes before every shift to help keep sanity and prepare for battle.
Today I am walking to work already in a good mood. I had a good date the night before and although I didn’t get laid as planned, I did have a wonderful time. I am still sipping the coffee from the meditation moment of the day and walking into work. One block before I get to the bar, I notice a little pebble of what looks like human shit. While disgusted, I am not that astonished and keep walking. Once at the bar, everything seems as it always is. I am ready for a good day. I keep telling myself that it can only get better. I go to the restroom before I clock in. Once in the there, while waiting for a free urinal, I watch a drunken man trying to aim into the large urinal only to hit his feet and the feet of two other men near him who don’t notice. This, I don’t blame him for, because I too have the same issue sometimes even when sober. Once done, he hiccups, burps and starts the difficult mission of trying zip his fly. This fly zipping takes the drunken sap another 4 minutes because while he is trying to zip, he actually is wearing a button-up fly. I finish my business only to leave the guy still trying to close his fly. Finally I get to my bar station, near the dance floor, happily situated, waiting for customers. I reorganize the liquor bottles to my preference and wait for the customers to start coming my way. I am only three margaritas into this shift when it happens (margaritas for customers, not me). Two middle-ages guys come up to order drinks. One is lean, dressed in a Versace button-up dark blue shirt, dark navy slacks and pointy brown shoes. His thin, long, stringy hair is slicked back to its grey self as to add to what should be a distinguished look. The other is slightly taller, thicker, but still lean enough to see that this man probably drinks his meals rather than eats them, or so I assume. He is wearing a white Marc Jacobs suit with light violet button-up within the jacket. I assume the two to be the male version of Patsy and Edie minus the English accents. They both have a pungent smell of rubbing alcohol and the Marc Jacobs suit asks me for a “Johnny Red on the ro...” As he is trying to get the word “rocks” out of his mouth, other things start to come out of his mouth. The vomit starts flowing, spewing from him and getting all over my bar station. While this guy continues to vomit for a solid three minutes I am standing there horrified and send for the doorman. His friend looks horrified as he watches what is happening and somehow continues to sip the remains of his drink. Oddly the customers of the bar just stand there, sipping their drinks, watching in silence. I notice that this gentleman who is spewing chunks is still holding on to his last drink while painting the bar. Once he stops, the doorman asks him to put the drink down since he has obviously had too much and should leave. Any sane, sober person would have realized their party foul and probably left on their own out of embarrassment. This idiot tells the doorman to F-off and goes back to sipping his drink as though nothing happened. The doorman ends up prying the drink from this drunk’s hand. His friend starts yelling at me saying that I caused the vomiting due to making the drinks so cheap. This causes him to squeal like a little girl, which creates a chain-reaction where then the barback who has to clean the reddish mess, who also squeals, a patron in the far corner of the bar sees the vomit on the bar and runs to the closest bathroom presumably to puke. The friend, who calls me darling, asks if he could still have his drink while he takes out a color assorted handful of random pills and puts them on the only clean part of the counter in front of my station. This is all as his friend; the vomit-monster is being carried out. I cut him off and he leaves. The rest of my shift of horrors is followed with customers trying to figure out if that smell is they or the person next to them.
The part that confuses me the most is this. I have done many dumb things without the influence of alcohol in my day. I will not lie; I like a good stiff drink, now and now. I have had moments in my life where I drank enough vodka to kill a large animal and done several stupid things. I have taken the wrong bus home sometimes. I forget my phone in cabs from time to time; I often accidentally leave my fly open due to the fact that I simply can’t be bothered with the buttons. I have on occasion have been known to make out with random gentlemen when inebriated as well. But I don’t ever have the need when drunk to pee in the middle of a bar, puke anywhere other than a lawn, toilet or alleyway, nor do I ever get kicked out of an establishment. I have my standards.
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