The Bartending Diaries, Chapter 1

Awhile back I realized something. I have no skills. Not even in the 'Napoleon Dynamite' wishes of numchuck skills or computer-hacking skills. It hit me that if something ever happened to the freight industry that I'd be pretty much screwed because I've become unskilled labor. So, trying to think of what I might be good at I sat down with a glass of wine to ponder on this. The irony was too thick to ignore: I'm good at drinking! And while this may be considered to be more of an addiction than it is a skill, there is certainly one easy way to capitalize on this: Bartending!!

I went thru a 2-week training program at ABC Bartending School in Mt. Prospect, learning how to make all sorts of drinks. It's a great school with a full bar to work with. At first sight I was taken aback, but quickly realized that these bottles were filled with colored water to look like the representing booze. Otherwise I may have stayed late to do some extra credit work. My favorite you've-got-to-be-kidding-me aspect of the class has nothing to do with the teaching of it, but rather that it's located directly across the hall from nightly AA meetings. I sh*t you not!

So I graduated the class and wondered why I didn't have friends and family come out for the ceremony. (There wasn't a ceremony.) Regardless, it's time to find a job, but apparently no one in the Palatine area was hiring bartenders when I went around to different establishments. Probably should have thought of this beforehand eh? I mean, all I want is to get some experience playing Tom Cruise in 'Cocktail' and then I can decide whether or not I enjoy doing it...at which point I can decide whether or not to open a bar! Let's be honest, is there any more fitting profession for Shoes?

With a lack of tending jobs open I hook up with a lady who runs private parties for folks who want catering and bartenders. The main thing is that I'll be travelling around to different areas, including people's homes, to work for the night. And man oh man let me tell you the stories just fall out of the sky on me, and it's only been about a month of gigs.

Oakbrook, IL

I arrive at the home of....well, I actually could name names but I won't. When I arrive at the house I meet up with one of the servers for the evening. We walk up to the front door thru the drizzle of rain as it's been raining on and off all day with big storms predicted thru the evening. We ring the doorbell at 4:01pm (we were told to be there at 4:00pm) and it's answered by a woman in a bathrobe with her hair wrapped up in a towel. She opens the door and after we introduce ourselves she says, "You weren't supposed to be here until five o'clock." I explain to her that this is indeed the time we were requested to be here for setup since guests start to arrive at 5pm. I feel a little strange needing to explain this to her seeing that it's her party, but oh well. She tells us to walk around to the back of the house. Not thru the house, mind you, but around. There are no sidewalks. Just grass. Very wet grass.

In back of the house we see 3 tables arranged on the back stone patio. These people have a lot of money, no doubt. The backyard is 2.5 acres, and the living room has pillars in it - seriously. The tables setup, however, are getting wet as the rain continues. We begin to use paper towels to wipe down the plates, silverware, glasses, chairs, everything. I suggested that we might be better off moving the party inside by the indoor pool and she wanted none of that. Finally she went inside to get ready for the party and her husband came outside to suggest that, yes, we should move everything inside. So it's a pain in the ass offloading the tables and moving them inside to arrange around the pool but it's still the safe thing to do. In fact the husband has turned on the weather channel while we get ready and we can all see the storms coming our way.

Half-way finished with setting up inside around the pool the wife comes down and flips out. "WHAT are you doing? You can't bring this stuff inside! Who told you to bring this stuff inside?!" With her husband cowering I tell her that we all decided that it was the only way to keep everyone dry for the dinner party since it's obviously going to rain. "Oh NO!" she cries. "We're not doing this inside!! I spent a LOT of time setting this up outside!!" We're all taken back a bit by this and the husband certainly isn't saying anything to stop it, so I continue with "Yes, I can tell you did a lot of hard work, but Mother Nature just isn't cooperating. Plus, once we're setup it'll look really nice around the pool and no one will even have to know that you were even setup up outside. They'll just think that a pool party is a really great idea."

We continue setting up while she continues with her barrage of "I can't BELIEVE we're doing this inside!!" immediately followed by my favorite line of the night: "I MAKE A LOT OF MONEY!!! NOT AS MUCH AS YOU" (pointing at her husband) "BUT A LOT OF MONEY!!!" I'm not really sure if she started jumping up and down while yelling this, but in my head she certainly was because it just seems right. I sooo wanted to ask her if her salary would stop it from raining outside. Suddenly the whining woman has become the Spoiled B*tch in her 40s.

Her rantings continue with no word from hubby at first. It would be all quiet for a minute or so while we prepared and then she would burst out with comments like "It's not even RAINING outside!!" The Mr. finally would say something like "Honey, it's going to rain really hard. Just look at the tv." She wouldn't. But she'd simmer for another minute before yelling "I don't even WANT these people in my house!!!" He answered: "You mean your family?" (pause) "No, they're fine!" she said. "It's all of the others I don't want in the house!"

The insanity has just begun. Finally, we finish setting up the tables. They look great and the husband mentions to me that I could move the pre-arranged bar area that was setup outside to the actual indoor bar. As I'm carrying glasses inside to the bar I get stopped by Mrs. Psycho whose eyes bulge open at me in shock and then she cries out "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" I tell her calmly that I'm moving the bar inside since it's raining, to which she starts shaking her head, closing her eyes and basically screaming "NO!!!! NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! YOU'RE NOT COMING INSIDE THIS HOUSE!!! I PAID $50,000 FOR THAT RUG AND YOU'RE NOT WALKING ON IT!!! YOU'RE NOT COMING IN HERE!!!" Struggling to not just tell it like it is to this person I mention that her husband and I had discussed it and it's the best option that we have because of the rain....and not to worry because I'll take off my shoes and in my most polite of all possible voices, leaving out all sarcasm, I say, "so you don't have to worry about your $50,000 rug." She looks at me and says, "They can all get their drinks outside if they want them! You can stand out there and serve them!" Needless to say, there's no chance I'm going to stand out in the rain serving drinks, so I somehow brush it off and explain to her that this is really the only option available. I'd sooner let my bladder explode on her flipping rug than do that for her.

Her meltdown continues as she looks at her husband, basically blaming him for all of this and screams "I didn't even want any of this!! And now these people are going to be in my house!! I HATE THIS!!!!" Her husband, completely cowed yet calm finally says the mildest of reproaches : "Honey, you need to start acting like a lady." She doesn't even look fazed when she replies "I AM acting like a lady! In fact I'm the only lady left in this world!!!"

Dictionary.com - lady: 1. a woman who is refined, polite, and well-spoken.

I never wanted a pocket dictionary more than at that moment just to show her the definition and ask her which part applied to her.

Finally the guests started to arrive and she didn't even ask them to remove their shoes as they walked all over her expensive rug, drinking wine. I would hear her make offhanded comments to her guests saying things like "Yeah, we were setup up outside but it looked like rain so we moved it in by the pool..." and "I didn't really want to move the party inside but finally I decided that it was probably the best idea and so I had us move it in..." I kinda wanted to offhandedly puke.

As the story comes to a close you can probably guess that anyone who brags about how much money they make will most assuredly be a horribly cheap tipper. And you'd be right. But if you're feeling sorry for the husband in this household I wouldn't start sending sympathy e-cards just yet. He lets this occur, and lets her act like the spoiled, immature brat that she is even around outside company.

The final kicker: I feel it's also worth mentioning that when setting up at the indoor bar he showed me the bar refrigerator. Inside was nearly 20 bottles of wine. Red wine. In a standard refrigerator running at 38 degrees. Stacked on their sides, bottle upon bottle because the fridge is packed full. He tells me that he likes his wine cold. As I watch the condensation forming and dripping off of all of his bottles I shake my head and tell him no problem. So I pour him a glass of Cabernet and thinking that the wine is already ruined from being stored that cold anyway I re-cork it and put it back into the fridge so that his next glass can be served cold as well. When he comes back for the second glass and I take out the bottle and begin to pour, he tells me "You know, you have to let red wine breathe after you uncork it."

So, after all is said and done, after the insane b*tchess of Oakbrook goes postal on us, and after I have to serve this crazy couple's guests in my socks, I end up getting wine-serving tips from a guy who stores his own red wine in the vegetable crisper.

Coming Soon: Chapter 2. More fun from crazy people.