Seriously, it's a little gay & explicit. You've been warned.
The bar that I currently work full-time at (as opposed to the bar I work at 1 night a week, or the two other bars where I occasionally do fill-in shifts) is fairly gay-friendly. Alaska rightly has a reputation as a politically conservative state, but there's a certain "if you leave me alone I'll leave you alone" attitude that's particular to Alaska, too.
The Mine, my main gig, is a blue-collar establishment that's been in business for nearly 40 years same owner, same location. It's an old-fashioned small neighborhood-style bar. 40 years ago, when the place was built, it was in a residential neighborhood, but as time has passed, a courthouse, an Alaska Native cultural center, and several big hotels & upscale' (for Fairbanks) restaurants have been built within a few blocks radius. There are still a good number of homes in the immediate area, but the bar is in what has become an odd fulcrum for several different sorts of neighborhoods.
One side effect of the age of the bar, its blue-collar nature (we welcome tourist business, but we absolutely do NOT cater nor advertise to tourists), and odd "nook" location is that a lot of the people who work in the restaurants and hotels in the area have chosen the Mine as their hangout bar. It's great! Waiters and cooks and other staff are usually good customers they tip well, they know how to behave, and they come in regularly. And of course many of the waiters and hosts are gay.
We're fine with it gay guys often bring hot chicks to the bar, they make the girls feel comfortable, and they're not competing with us straight guys for the girls! We do get the occasional redneck who takes offence to their mere presence, and the gays are perfectly capable of being idiots in the same way that ANY person who gets too drunk can be an idiot, but for the most part it's never an issue. Since I've been working at the Mine full time for a couple of years now, I know most of their names & they know me too.
…you carry a little weeping guy out to a taxi every few months for a year (each time he breaks up with his latest boyfriend), you leave an impression.
One of our (female) bartenders in particular has a lot of young, pretty, gay guy-friends, and on occasion she will offer to drive them home after bar close so they don't have to wait for a taxi. However, the owner has a strict rule that after closing time only employees can be in the building, so if any of us employees are giving any friends a ride home, the friends have to leave at closing time and wait outside. It's great for us employees when the weather is really cold "Hey, buddy, go start my car and wait in it while we finish shutting down".
So on the night in question the bartender has two gay friends waiting in her car while we close the bar. She counts her money, I bag up the trash and restock some liquor, and we lock up. We have to leave through the front on this occasion I've parked up front, and the bartender has parked on the other side of the building, in our main parking lot. She hops into my car and I drive around back, pulling up to her vehicle and at first glance, there's no-one inside!
At first, we're a little worried that the guys had tried to drive themselves home, but she looks around the parking lot and sees that their vehicle is still there.
"Do you think they got tired of waiting and took a cab?" she asks.
"Maybe… or maybe caught a ride with another friend…?" I reply… and as she and I are talking, we look over at her car, and both simultaneously see a head bob up into the window of her car, then go down, then bob up again!
She screams. I also scream. I look away, but she keeps staring at her car! She yells "OH MY GOD!!! WHAT DO WE DO???"
I reply, (quite reasonably, I think). " WE' NOTHING! They're your friends, it's your car, YOU need to deal with it! I ain't goin' out there!"
(we're both mortified, but we're both also laughing it's pretty funny)
"OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD… … … I just thought of something…"
"What?"
"What's my car going to smell like?"
I look over at her, laughing, just in time to see the head bob up again, look up, see us, sit up a little higher, smile, wave… and go back down!!!
She sees it too, and screams again. I also may have screamed again. I definitely averted my eyes!
"Ok, sweetheart, I love you, but you need to get out now and go deal with that I've gotta get out of here!"
"OK, OK, OK, Alex… good night…" She gets out of my car, and I speed off, laughing hysterically.
***
The next evening, a different bartender is working, but I'm on shift again, and who should walk in but the bobbing head!
"Hey, man, how're you doing tonight?"
He greets me with a big cat who just ate the canary' grin and a little fingertip wave "Heeeeey Alex I'm GREAT! How're you?"
"I'm fine, man, I'm fine." He starts to walk away, but I call after him, "Hey, I've got a question for you what did her car smell like afterwards?"
He pauses, looks back at me over his shoulder, grins and snaps his fingers, "Pfft – Abercrombie and Fitch, of course!" And he keeps on walking away…
Annnnd, SCENE.
I'll never be able to look at an Abercrombie and Fitch store the same way, not ever again.
Submitted for your entertainment,
-Alex in Alaska
