God, my head hurts!
It's 11:15 on a Wednesday morning and I should really be setting up the bar, seeing as the restaurant opens in about fifteen minutes. Instead I am lying on top of it. I briefly wonder if my boss is watching the security cameras from her office. I contemplate moving my 'dead bartender' act into the cooler in which the beer kegs are stored (no cameras), but decide the effort required would be too great.
"Rough night," a voice calls out. I raise me head and see Kathleen, one of the restaurant's managers, standing in the front doorway.
I nod and put my head back down on the bar. "Just be up and on your feet by 11:30," she tells me and heads toward the kitchen. I manage a thumbs-up and return to wallowing in my own misery. Note to self: downing eight shots of Jameson and staying out all night is a terrible idea after the age of 21.
After resting a few more minutes, I slide behind the bar where I belong. Quickly, I set up the odds and ends that I will need during my shift. No sooner than I am done, I hear the front door of the restaurant open. A young couple enters and approaches the bar.
I stifle a groan. What kind of degenerates drink at 11:35 on a Wednesday, I think to myself. Anyone who drinks before noon on a weekday is not to be trusted (exceptions being made for St. Patrick's Day, Cinco di Mayo, and my birthday). Why don't they drink between the hours of 11:00pm and 7:00 am like normal human beings?! Ugh!
My thoughts are interrupted by the girl's annoyingly perky voice, "Hi, I'm Stacey!" Stacey looks like a life-sized version of sorority Barbie. "I was wondering if you guys had any jobs available?"
Yes, take mine. Please!
Somewhere in the mush that is currently my brain, I wonder if she had a Xanax omelette for breakfast. No one is this perky, this early in the day. Not without pharmaceutical help anyway.
I tell her to hold on and retrieve Kathleen, who leads Barbie, I mean Stacey (oops) off to a table to interview her. I am now left to entertain Stacey's boyfriend, who looks like he fell out of a J. Crew catalog. But not the regular catalog...more like the semi-annual "everything must go" clearance catalog. Basically preppy, but very sloppy. Good face though, definitely a fixer-upper.
The boyfriend asks for a club soda, which I get and do not charge him. I attempt to busy myself by organizing the pens I keep next to the register in hopes it will distract J. Crew boy from talking to me.
It does not work.
"So do you like working here," he asks.
"Yeah it's okay," I reply. When my head doesn't feel as if it has been beaten in with a five iron, I add silently.
"She wants to bartend," Mr. J. Crew informs me. "She's never done it before though."
I shrug noncommittally. "It's okay," I repeat. I know that I am not being helpful, but my hangover had severely impaired my conversational skills.
"Do you think they'll hire her with no experience?"
"Who knows, maybe," I explain. "She's cute which definitely works in her favor."
J. Crew smiles. It is a nice smile, actually. Still, I wish he would keep quiet so that I can be hungover in peace.
I make a mental note to ask Kathleen to get me a couple of Tylenols from the office. The only painkillers in the restaurant are not in the first aid kit, but rather locked in the owner's desk in the office. For safety purposes, as she puts it. As if her employees are a bunch of acetaminophen junkies who want to steal her Tylenol and use it for evil.
Give me a f-ing break.
Kathleen and Stacey return to the bar at this moment. "Stacey will be training tomorrow and hopefully she'll be working behind the bar by next week," Kathleen tells me. Stacey is grinning from ear to ear, literally. I honestly worry that she may pop a blood vessel in her head and die.
"I'm so excited," she exclaims.
I wonder what tall tale this girl told Kathleen to get herself hired with no experience, but I extend my hand and shake hers. "Welcome aboard," I say smiling. In the back of my mind though there is a far different thought: This poor girl is going to get eaten alive.
BN
