It’s been my experience that if you ask most bartenders, they’ll tell you that they have a love hate relationship with New Year’s Eve. Yes, they love the fact that it’s busy and it’s a great tip night. But, it’s also what I like to call “Amateur Hour”; people who don’t normally go out drinking in bars like to go out on New Year’s. These people have no idea how to behave, how to “drink properly”, and they don’t know to respect the people that are serving them their drinks.

Case in point: There was a pair of guys in my bar last Friday. I had never seen them before and they were obnoxious as hell. They were loud, impatient, and rude. They didn’t care to wait their turn while people who had been waiting longer were taken care of, and thought that while I was mixing drinks for other people was the opportune time to bark additional drink orders at me. I yelled at them a lot.

Fast forward to the end of the night. Things are starting to calm down a little bit as we approach last call and some people are getting ready to leave. Not these two idiots, however. They’ve got some cute young blond girl up at the bar and idiot #1 is schmoozing her real hard. He wants to buy her shots and is doing so with usual rude, loud, bombast. His mark wanted Tequila, which I served her. Her would be paramours were crowding her personal space and she had to practically climb on top of the bar between then to ask me for a salt shaker.

That’s when an evil grin crept upon my visage. I took her outstretched hand in my left hand while my right hand held the salt shaker. I took her left hand and put my mouth over the fleshy part of her hand between the thumb and forefinger and sucked on it and then sprinkled salt on it. The two men of course look at me like I’d just questioned their mothers’ honors. The girl looked upon me with slack-jawed awe.

The two men were not to be out done. Not long after they wanted to buy their mark another shot. She asked for Rumpleminz so they ordered it, loudly, again in defiance of anyone who may have been waiting longer. I made them wait a short while before I served the shot, my lighter in hand.

I placed the shot in front of her, stuck my finger in the shot, then lit my finger on fire. All four of us stared at the blue flame for a few short seconds before I stuck my flaming finger in my mouth and sucked the alcohol off.

Again, the two men looked at me with a priceless expression of, “What the fuck, dude?” The girl, however, was again looking at my like I was Dionysus.

“That was so fucking cool,” she cooed. “Can I try that?”

I said sure and pulled out my lighter and waited for her to dip her finger in the shot. She looked at me expectantly.

“Ohhhhhhhh!” I said as I chuckled and stuck my finger back in her shot. I lit and placed my finger before her. She looked at me playfully while I blew out the flame (didn’t trust her) for her and then she sucked the liquor off my finger while her two new friends walked away.

The lesson to be learned here?

Don’t fuck with your bartender.

He will cock block you.

FYI: I went home and rang in the New Year with my wife properly.

How do I know this?  She baked cookies last night.  Oatmeal chocolate chip.  My favorite. 

[	Tags	|	dad	]
[	mood	|	pissed off	]

Well, I got to chew my dad's ass this evening.

Earlier in the week my oldest decided that he isn't going to do Cub Scouts anymore.  That's fine, if he doesn't want to do it I support that.  I'm not one of those parents that lays out his kid's life for him and tells him what he will or will not do (unless it's something important).

Tonight my dad spoke to Gabe for the first time on the phone.  I mistakenly thought that Dad wanted to talk to him about maybe hunting tomorrow morning.  No, my dad goes on to basically lay on a guilt trip on my son about quitting scouts and how it'll effect the rest of his life or some bullshit.  Long story short, he made my kid cry and I don't like that.  Only I get to make my kid cry.

So I took the phone away from Gabe and lambasted my dad for making my son cry.  Then I ripped him for being in the bag.  I asked him if he'd been drinking.  It's a silly question; it's after 7:30 on a Friday.  It'd make as much sense to ask George Clooney if he'd had sex with a ridiculously hot lady today.  He answered, "Well, some."  

Dad, I'm not the local beat cop who just pulled you over for going three miles over the speed limit or not using your blinker and then asked you if you'd been drinking.

"Yeah, Dad, well do not EVER give my son some sort of fucking life advice if you're in the fucking bag, okay?"

"Well, let me talk to him again, I'll apologize."

"Not today you're not."

And then I hung up on him.

This is the first chapter of a novel I started this summer and I can't remember if I posted it before or not.  It's a sci-fi story but set in 1930s New York in a noir style.  Critiques are welcome.

           It was raining again; no surprise there.  It had been for most of the week.  It wouldn’t have been all that bad but it was a hot rain, the kind that made the air thick and heavy like in an old speakeasy when it was full of smoke and sweat and sin.