RUDE!

Normally I love what I do. It's fun and interesting, reasonably challenging without being terribly demanding, and you can't beat the hours. And then there are days . . . .

Today was one of them. It started out rough because I worked in two places yesterday, and didn't get into bed until 3 am. Roughly 3 1/2 hours later, I was awakened by a mighty urge to pee (this normally never happens) and a driving desire to write about recycling. And no, it's not that time, and no, I'm not preggers. Then I would up spending $77 on a doctor visit for kiddo's unrelenting cough, and $40 on antibiotics. Ted told me what he had spent on kiddo's Santa gift, and it was 3 digits. And there is another part of the gift that needs to be bought. And then I got to work late and the bar was empty of anyone but girls.

Ordinarily, I am very patient and forgiving when men say weird, bizarre, or just plain rude things. In all my years of dancing, I have learned that silence is usually the better part of discretion. But given the circumstances, I think any reasonable person can see why my fuse was a tad bit short today. Note I said a reasonable person. We had a shortage of those today. Here are some excerpts my night at work.

Me: Thank you for those two dances, I had a wonderful time. (Lie, lie, lie. This guy was handsy, smelly, and all over despicable. He slobbered on my neck.)
Him: Let's go have another drink.
Me: Let's settle up for those dances first.
Him: Didn't I already pay you?
Me: No.
Him: Yes I did.
Me: Nope, sorry. Look in my purse, I don't have any money.
He grudgingly produces payment for one dance.
Me: No, that was two dances.
Him: No, it was one.
It just goes on from here, with lots of "did not's" and "did too's" with the end result being that I did not get paid for the second dance. Funny thing is, I had a premonition in the middle of the second dance that that was going to happen.

Me: Hi
Customer: I don't want any dances, I'm here to forget someone.
Me: Sweetie, a few dances with me and you'll forget everyone.
Customer: She was a dancer. I hate dancers.
In my thought bubble: Then why on earth are you here? This is the only bar in Crown Point that has dancers.

Me: (After some random chit-chat) So, let's go have some fun!
Customer (who is around 55 years old): I don't want a dance with you. You know what I see when I look at you? I see a middle-aged woman who . . . (trails off after scathing look from me)
Me: Yes? Who what?
Him: Uh, uh. Well, middle aged, you know.
Me: And you know what I see? I see one homely m*ther-f*cker who I wouldn't even give the time of day to, if I wasn't at work.

Same customer, who is not content to let me be but chases me down and attempts to continue the conversation:
Customer: (in confrontational tone, grabbing my arm) I wasn't trying to be rude.
Me: No, you were succeeding at being rude.
Customer: What did I say? I mean I didn't want to hurt your feelings or anything. I was just being honest.
Me: I don't consider 38 middle aged. (Turning away now)
Him: Well, don't go away hurt. I don't want to hurt your feelings. You ARE middle aged.
Me: (Losing patience now) Dude, neither you nor any other man in this bar matters enough to me to hurt my feelings. Only one man matters to me right now. He is six years old and believes Santa is going to bring him a hideously expensive train set which, thanks to cheap asses like you, I cannot afford. If you want to apologize or make me feel better, you can buy a dance. C'mon, let's go.
Him: I wouldn't get a dance with you, you're old.
(This same asshole then contented himself with tormenting the bartender for the rest of the night.)

Some young guy, possibly a friend of the last guy: I can't get a dance with you, you would not be able to handle it.
Me: I can handle anything, baby. Let's go find out.
Him: If you saw my c*ck, you wouldn't know what to do with it.
Me: Eye roll and walk away
In my thought bubble: What in hell makes his schlong so different from all the other ones I have had time to see in my advanced years? Does it do tricks?

What is is about the holiday season that makes men act this way? Every year about this time, the bars fill up with mean people, the physically grotesque and socially stunted, who possibly cannot even pay escorts to spend quality time with them. So they come into bars full of attractive women who would ordinarily never have any thing to do with them and anyway who are NOT there to get a date, and act in the most obnoxious way possible to guarantee that even if there were a remote chance one of us might have once considered leaveing with a customer, it would not, in a million years, be with them.

Sometimes life imitates the Simpsons.

In between a somewhat disappointing trip to the children's museum (am I the only one who notices the stuff is falling apart?) and running to 4-H (Where I will now be volunteering as a leader of my son's Cloverbud group), I made a quick supper and sat down to watch the Simpsons with Kiddo and Super Ted.

This was the episode where Marge and Homer go on a tour of wine country, and Marge starts drinking as much as Homer. In the course of it, Homer does something Really awful to Marge. He sits in the local bar where the bartender, Moe, asks him some variation of "Why the long face?" This is what happens next:

Moe: You can tell me. I've heard everything.

Homer whispers in Moe's ear.

Moe: That's awful! That's the most horrible thing I ever heard! You . . . why, you deserve to drink watered-down beer out of a chipped mug, while sitting on a stool with a big sharp nail sticking straight up!

Moe now smacks Homer's mug on the edge of the bar--chipping the entire rim-- then pours a cup of water into Homer's half-finished beer. He relocates Homer one stool over onto a stool with a big pointy nail sticking out of it.

Homer: Can I have some peanuts?

Moe: OK, but I get to poke you with this sharp stick (which he produces from under the bar).

Moe resumes the classic position of a bartender, leaning with one elbow on the bar, bar rag in hand, all the while poking away at Homer with his stick.

Moe: (poke, poke, poke) So, did ya see the game last night? (Poke, poke)

Now, that was possibly the funniest thing I have EVER seen on the Simpsons. Everybody I told that to at work last night (Yes, I went after 4-H) thought it was mildly amusing, except the bartender, who laughed so hard she almost wet herself!

See, you have to realize that the the part of this conversation in dark blue is the part that is really happening, and the part in lavender is what is going on inside the bartender's head. We who work in bars totally GET IT and love it. I have, many times, had to listen to a conversation where they guy is telling me how he beat up his kids, cheated on his wife, extorted his company's money, and stole food from starving orphans, while I smile and nod and say, Wow! what an interesting life you've had. Let's go have that dance now.

Now on to work. There were few customers and many dancers, which means, once you land a seat next to a potential customer, you stay there. To get up prematurely means you risk losing your only chance for a sale in the immediate future, and furthermore you will wind up staring at the fish tank or the silent TV, with no one to talk to. So I sat with one cheap idiot who had tipped me a dollar for a 5-minute massage ( I gave it back to him), a mooncalf who was about to go on house arrest for the second time, and this third knucklehead who started talking about how he had shot his dog.

THe whole story is, the guy had been divorced and was by his own admission sleeping with any slut that would have him. The dog had a habit of waking up the women in the middle of the night and scaring them away. Well, the dog took a liking to this one woman, and allowed the woman to stay in the house. Eventually this knucklehead married the (slut) woman, on the dog's recommendation. Eventually the (slut) woman reverted to the behavior that got her in the guy's bed in the first place, and started sleeping with the guy's boss. So this asshole shoots the dog.

I feel ya, Moe.