Last night I went to my favorite dive bar which is a dark, smoke filled,tiny hole in the wall filled with all kinds of characters. This makes it my favorite place not only to drink with friends but to people watch as well. The bartender working last night is far from my favorite because she is too fucking odd to live (so you never know wtf your walking into) so best to stay off the radar as they say. Last night she was aggravated because for once it was almost a busy night. The first bizarre interaction was when I went up to the bar to get another beer at which point the bartender said and I quote “You drink too fast.” First off I wasn’t drinking any sort of cocktail as I said I was drinking bottled beer so all the bartender had to do was reach in a cooler, grab a beer, open it and serve it (how fucking easy is that?!) Also I couldn’t help thinking well if I drink fast then I drink a good bit before I leave and I tip putting money in the bartenders pocket. Let me take a second to explain the tip deal. This dive bar is also a private club were the patrons pay annul dues of a whole whopping $20 (sarcasm abounds) thusly they believe that they’re absolved from tipping ever. I’ve frequented this bar for 7 plus years and only saw 2 other people in all that time actually tip and they were newbies.
Fast forward a few hours during which time the people who had to work the next day leave followed by the elderly patrons and then by the heavy drinkers/alcoholics leaving only a handful of lingering local barflies. Now at this point in the evening I had switched from beer to Rum&Coke of which I drank 3 before ordering my final drink of the evening (which is a double Rum&Coke) and this led to an even more absurd interaction between the bartender and myself. I went ahead and ordered my double Rum&Coke. What happen next I don’t understand at all as not only do I tip but I wasn’t bitching about her drinks being weak nor in anyway talking shit to the bartender (i.e. giving her a hard time) With that said the bartender walks over to the bar, grabs a 8oz glass and proceeded to leisurely pour 7oz of rum into the glass and then stopped. She then turns her head to look at me and asked angrily “Is this OK?!” as if we were having some sort of altercation and now I’m stuck with a pissed off belligerent bartender. The bartender then tops of the glass with a slash of coke, walks it over to where I was sitting at the bar and again gets in my face like we’re involved in a non existent disagreement. This time she places the drink in front of me then leans over the bar and asks me snidely “Does THAT make you happy?” and I simply said “Yes” and that was that.