Subtitled:
"Like a thumb sticking out of the business end of a wet kitten."
Just a heads-up – this one may be a tad more explicit than my usual bar tales.
As usual, I'm a few stories behind. I'll never get my book of bar tales written at this rate…
Sunday night is a fun night to work. 'The Mine', the bar that currently employs me five nights a week, is mostly a locals-and-regulars kind of place, so I've gotten to know most of the customers. Sunday is pretty slow – people are done with their party-ing for the weekend, and most folks have to work in the morning.
We're located downtown, near to a couple of the nicest restaurants in the area. Most nights, between 11:00 and midnight, we get an influx of waiters, cooks, and bartenders from those restaurants. They're good people, fun customers, and good tippers. But sometimes they (usually the cooks and dishwashers) bring in odd stragglers.
For example – last Sunday was a pretty standard mix of regulars, and a few people that I didn't know. Young-ish crowd, pretty calm folks. There was a young guy sitting on one side of the bar with his two sisters, celebrating his birthday. Across the bar were a couple of cooks, and sitting with them was a 'friend of a friend' that they'd met up with at another bar, and who'd tagged along.
The friend of a friend was… OK. A little loud, a little out of place, conversationally a little pushy, but mostly behaving OK. Nothing too out of the ordinary for a tipsy 22-year-old in a new place.
Until the sisters sang "Happy Birthday" to their brother. Then he noticed that one of the girls was quite cute. She was sitting in the middle – ugly sister, cute sister, brother. So, Mr Foaf (Friend Of A Friend) gets up, walks around the bar, sits next to the ugly sister, and starts talking around her to the cute sister. Cute Sister, of course, is ignoring him, and Ugly Sister keeps repositioning herself on her bar stool to move between herself and Mr Foaf.
I'm behind the bar doing dishes, directly across from the sisters – I lean across and ask them if everything's OK. Cute Sister says to me, quite assertively, that "Thank you, everything's fine, I can take care of myself." The brother hears me talking to the girls, and this is the point where he notices Mr Foaf and what he's doing.
I shrug and continue loading the dishwasher.
But Mr. Foaf is persistent! He starts reaching around and behind Ugly Sister, tapping Cute Sister on the shoulder and knee, trying to get her attention. Birthday Brother finally gets fed up and yells at the guy – "HEY! Dude! That's my sister! Leave her alone!".
Mr Foaf acts all apologetic and extends his hand to Birthday Brother ("Sorry man, don't mean no disrespect, I just don't like being ignored…"). Birthday Brother, being extremely magnanimous, accepts the half-apology and shakes Mr Foaf's hand.
Mr Foaf won't let go! Too drunk (or too stupid, or too contrary, or most likely some combination of all three traits…) to know how to quit while he's ahead, Mr Foaf holds onto Birthday Bro's hand, explaining at length how hot the cute sister is, and how he just wants to talk to the girl, and how disrespectful it is of her to ignore him, but he'll respect BB's wishes and leave her alone. Birthday Bro finally extricates his hand from the deathgrip, saying "OK, OK, OK – just leave her alone".
And while withdrawing his hand from Birthday Bro, Mr Foaf pokes the Cute Sister, twice, on the shoulder.
Of course, by now I'm standing directly behind Mr Foaf. I've just been waiting for him to let go of the brother's hand. I put my hand on the bar between Mr Foaf and the sisters.
"Alright buddy, it's time to go home".
He looks over his shoulder at me, and tries to wave me off "Nah, it's OK".
I grab the barstool Mr Foaf is sitting on and spin it around.
"Nah, it ain't OK – you need to leave now".
Mr Foaf stands up unsteadily and starts to walk towards the door – he tries to turn around a couple of times to talk to me, but I put my hands on his lower back and shouler to guide him in the right direction.
So we go up the stairs and out the door. "Do you live within walking distance, or do I need to call you a cab?", I say.
He replies, "I bet you think you're pretty smart".
"I'm well aware of my limitations".
"Yeah, you think you're some kind of genius"
"Well, here I am inside a warm building, and there you are out in the snow. Have a good night." And I close the door and walk down the stairs back inside.
The ugly sister meets me at the bottom of the steps. "Here's his coat. Thanks!" And she hands me the guy's coat (it looks like something out of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club, but in olive green).
So I hop back up the steps and open the door –
– to find Mr Foaf standing there, pants down, junk in hand, trying to pee on our door.
The look of surprise on his face was comical. I'm sure I had a similar look on *my* face.
It was cold outside, about freezing, and his member didn't like the temperature. It looked like a wrinkled thumb sticking out of the business end of a wet kitten.
I recover from my shock/horror, and yell "WHAT THE F---!!!!!" and I throw his coat at him, hard. It wraps itself around his head.
For a moment he stands there, fumbling at his pants with one hand, fumbling at his coat with the other. The he takes off running, SPRINTING away from me into the parking lot, still struggling with his zipper, barely holding on to the coat with his other hand.
I stand there watching him run for a second or two, then think to myself "… yeah, I'm gonna chase him".
So I take off after him, having to run pretty hard to catch up. He'd turned a corner and was doing up his pants, when he sees me running after him.
"You got some more to say about genius, pal?"
He looks horrified and starts running again, falling down on the slippery ground. I slow down when he falls, and watch him scramble to try to stand up, then fall again, and again, and again (he's drunk and standing on an icy patch).
Priceless. :)
Laughing, and a little out of breath, I walk back inside. I love my job.
-Alex
