Sewing classes! (I had my first one yesterday before work.). There's a place RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM ME that offers sewing and knitting classes and I'm currently enrolled in beginners sewing. I didn't want to come into Parsons that far behind, so I decided to find some sewing classes and lower my learning curve. The BEST thing about this place: the owner offered to let it be my "home away from home" while I'm at Parsons... letting me use the fabric, the mannequins, cut and drape fabric, use their library (and they themselves) as a resource... I'm SO thankful. AND it's a non-profit that uses donated fabrics to sew clothing for women who are living in shelters after fleeing domestic abuse situations. All-in-all: greatness.
So that's why I put up with THIS:
Every Bar Has A Drunkie
When you work in a place where it's part of your hustle to get people to buy you shots and bottles of beer, if you don't have some modicum of self-control... you're going to get drunk. And usually, the people for which this is a problem don't even know how DRUNK they're acting. They maintain: "yeah, I can take whatever-whatever for the whole night and be fine!" ...No, sweetie, you're not fine. You're drunk. My boss had to take this girl aside and tell her to stop drinking, that her sales had dipped significantly, and that she had to take a break. Not a good look.
Quirks and Jerks
Some customers have fun quirks, and some are jerks. We'll examine a few:
Quirks: The customer who nicknamed me Jameson after he discovered that that's the only thing I really like to take shots of. I like that so much I just might use that as my bartending name instead of Nikki. It's cool!
Jerks: The guy who said to me, "te amo! Te amo! $500!" ("I love you! I love you! $500!). First of all, if you love me that much, the least you could do is offer to pay my full rent amount, which is $716. It's more acceptable to pay off my worries for the month though, which will run you about $1,200. Second of all, I am not a prostitute. Third of all, if you have to pay for sex, something that is abundant for free, you need to reevaluate your life. Jerk. And just for that, you get the Sleazeball Skeeza of the Night award.
Quirks: The artistic guy who came in and sketched all of us. It was cool. (They weren't really detailed sketches or anything... no resemblance to be found; otherwise I would've demanded that security confiscate the papers, lol).
Jerks: Those pesky Domincan dudes, Los Chicos Guapos, who came back in with a friend in order to get at me. This fool said something to me in Spanish that I didn't understand, so I turned to his friend and said, "what did he say?" His friend translated, "we're fucking tonight." ...Excuse me? I didn't get that memo. And I certainly didn't agree to that. I shook my head, "no, no, no." Then the other friend kept asking me for my number and I just finally had to say, "look. I don't speak Spanish; he doesn't speak English. What does he need my number for?" To which he replies, "call a hotel." OH-MY-FREAKIN-GAWD: NOOOOOOOOOOO. How many freakin times do I have to freakin say NO!? After they figured out they wouldn't be getting any from me, they left. Ugh... Sleazeball Skeezas.
Quirks: My Slovakian friend who, after asking my name and what it meant (peace), said, "that's fitting because men feel at peace when they look into your face." Aw! That's sweet! Corny, but sweet! Now, he started to get a little jerkish when he got drunk, he got a little too touchy-feely (don't play with my hair please), but I gave him a pass.
The BEST Customers EVER
With all of that being said, there are the type of customers that I really, really like to serve. Yes, they are the ones who spend the most money, but they're also the ones that have the most fun. These guys were dancing around, singing, rapping along to the music, laughing... having a good time. Bartending can feel like you're a hostess at the best party ever (or like another guest if you really get into it) when you've got customers like that. I feel like they must have spent over like $250 in the bar (I mean, one of the guys tipped me with a $20 bill for starters), and they stayed until close, dancing and clapping to Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'. It was fun. I didn't even feel like I was working.
ASIDE: And from what I can tell so far: something else I've discovered is that it's not native New Yorkers who harbor disdain for other, smaller cities... it's the transplant New Yorkers who seem to think that nowhere else is worth anything. And I think I've discovered why the New York accent is so nasal. Since I moved here, I've been having problems adjusting to the air quality. I literally feel like I can't breathe some days it's so bad. I end up talking through my nose. I sound just like a native New Yorker. Bingo! Theory: the nasal New York accent is caused by all the crap in the air that stops up your nose.
An Unpopular Opinion
So of course, what everyone is talking about now is the Steve McNair murder-suicide case. And I work at a bar... our job is to be social and talk. At the end of the night, as we were counting up our tips, one of the bartenders raised a point that would probably be an unpopular opinion:
"They keep saying that girl was crazy, but you know, I don't think so. Have you ever had your heart broken, I mean... really... broken. Like you thought this person loved you, thought you were going to grow together, be together, thought you were going to have his kids, thought he loved you... And then they break your heart. You'd feel like takin' 'em out to."
I thought about it. Yes, I've had my heart broken really, really badly. I felt like taking myself out just because it hurt so much and I didn't know how to get it to stop hurting. (It's an odd and horrible feeling... like wanting to jump outside of your skin because everything hurts and you can't take a pill for it, you can't put a bandaid on it, you can't take a shot... you just want everything to stop because you feel so empty and sick and there's no end in sight.). I felt like making him hurt so bad he'd feel like he was losing his mind. I wanted him to feel nothing but pain, just like I felt pain...
But the dividing line between crazy and sane is feeling all of those things, being able to put life in perspective, and not doing anything destructive.
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