Let's Have a Toast to the Douchebags

I enjoy a pint every now and then (more like now, right now) just like every red blooded American. Being in the retail industry one often turns to the good stuff in order to numb the pain of having to deal with the headaches of the workday. Be it at the pub with coworkers after an exceptionally long shift or alone, crying in your shower, alcohol helps sooth the pain of dealing with bullshit retail problems. There is a downside however. Sometimes one can get a little too dependent on the sauce and find it's the only way to get through a shift. So what I'm trying to tell you here is everything in moderation people. Have a Scotch every now and again but not 4 in one night (like me, shh). Find something else constructive to get the angries out. Might I suggest punching orphans or knitting? Again, everything in moderation. This all leads to today's story...

Starting a fight club is a great way to release stress.

Well I Like Drinking on a Monday Morning

For many a summers I worked on a boat. I did various jobs on the boat like tour guide, ticket sales, sea shanty chanteuse (say that 3 times fast) etc. The job kinda sucked but it offered the opportunity to make a decent amount of money, hang out with rad people and party all the time, just like that Eddie Murphy song suggested I do. The main downside is that the boats mainly catered to out of state tourists who are quite possibly the worst type of customer. They are frightened visitors with a false sense of suburban entitlement who feel the need to take their aggression out on you. An example was when a man tried to argue with me about the architectural history of a building. I mean, what would I know? I only lived in the city and gave the tour every fucking day whereas this man had read something in a tour guide (those things are bullshit, by the way) and fancies himself the next I.M. Pei. But, I digress.

One summer I got the chance to be a bartender on one of the charter boats. This was one of the prime jobs as it meant tips and the chance to steal liquor from the bar (almost everyone in the company was a substance abusing thief.) Finally I got my chance to be behind the bar, slinging drinks. Keep in mind I had no idea what the hell I was doing as I had no experience mixing drinks and having to talk to drunk people makes my skin crawl but I did it anyway, for a while at least until one afternoon when everything went to hell.

Every Sunday we had a brunch cruise or as we like to call it "Hell on the High Seas." It would be filled with annoying families and unlimited bacon. So, so much bacon. There were also bottomless Mimosas which gave old ladies an excuse to get shnockered at 11 AM. This particular day a girl who just turned 21 decided to take full advantage of the orgy of bacon and Mimosas and got a little out of hand.

About every 5 minutes she would come up to the bar and demand a new drink despite being told several times that a server would bring it to her. She would hear none of that and as time passed, and more liquor was consumed, her voice level got higher and the speech slurrier (not a word but let's run with it). The final time she came to the bar I asked her to sit down or I would have her removed from the dining room. She took that as a sign to grab a champagne glass, attempt to throw it at me and then slump over the bar while vomiting uncontrollably (fucking amateur hour shit right here). Luckily the boat's crew was right there and escorted the lovely young woman to the "brig" (it was just a room at the top of the ship where we put drunk/out of control guests) and let her sleep it off.

So I guess the moral of this story is don't eat a massive amount of bacon while consuming a bathtub full of cheap Champagne (Andre, ya'll!) Or do, but only if you're a licensed professional. Or if your hanging out with Tom Hanks.

This guy knows what's up.