COVID Cowgirl, Karen Ghidorah & The Thundering Nerd
I have two stories I want to share. One is clearly better in my mind and already has the greater bar community buzzing, but first, I need to go over ‘bar’ St. Patrick’s Day 2021.
Not the actual St. Patrick’s Day, which was a Wednesday and never as hyped as whatever Saturday people decide to fuck up their livers from 7 a.m. to Sunday. We’re talking about the bar’s big day.
Last year, the day before the first big shutdown, I made so much money. It was obscene. Everyone was throwing money at me like they were James Harden in a Houston strip club.
Yes, I am aware of what that analogy makes me.
Pretty sure one of our bartenders made enough for a month’s rent that night. I made enough to start a now-newly-defunct website for then-soon-to-be-unemployed service industry workers. It got picked up by The Angry Bartender and was semi successful for a few months.
St. Patrick’s Day 2021 had plenty of green, just none of what made last year so special.
My mom sewed together a cheerful mask and gift bags for the trinkets I bought from Dollar Tree. I had beads, bow ties, green fake Legos (legauxs), temporary tattoos, pins, some light-up necklaces, two loofahs and six boxes of Irish Spring bar soap.
Most everyone loved it. Well, they took the stuff and didn’t throw it on the ground, so I call that a win.
The night was running smoothly.
Until five tables started acting a damn fool.
The best way I can describe what happened between 9:05 and 9:22 p.m. on Saturday, March 13, was the completely out-of-place orgy scene from Matrix Reloaded.
Foot stomping, lip locking, drunk girl twerking, reckless abandon while a deadly enemy lurks outside the walls. Table 1 featured the Thundering Nerd, a large fellow with black, thick-rimmed glasses and a propensity for stomping, clapping, and having a generally jovial time … except he wouldn’t stop sloppily careening into other people’s tables. Outweighing and definitely out-sweating me, getting him out needed some tact. His table had an odd relationship with the table next to them. It’s like they were together, but not really. They enjoyed being rowdy, didn’t follow the rules, but also didn’t pushback when I had to enforce them. It was like Table 1 lite.
A six-top powder keg of woo-girls kept releasing two of their glam guild into the wild. Our primary COVID Cowgirl couldn’t keep her damn mask on in the bar, bouncing from table to table with the reckless abandon of Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman and Typhoid Mary, albeit with a lot less leather and a lot more risk of *being an asymptomatic carrier of a deadly disease.
I must note that, *I do not know if anyone had COVID. I’m commenting on the wonton behavior and attitude of a fair number of patrons.
So, Cowgirl is halfway through grinding on our Nerd, the other roving woo girl is chatting up Table 1 lite, and now three tables are locked in a battle of who can get kicked out faster when, in the corner of my eye I spot our Karen Ghidorah — a three-headed monster of self-aggrandizement, poor tipping, and a lack of fashion forward friends to give them good advice.
What did the Karens from Table 4 do? They kept walking through the bar sans mask, from a table by the front window all the way to the back corner. From a table that had four sets (three women and one random husband), to Table 5, a three-seater complete with the only other middle aged people in the room.
State mandate puts our limit at six people for indoor service. For being at least seven multiples of six, they couldn’t quite grasp the concept of the number.
And as much as you think the rules are “useless” or “government overreach” or “a Bill Gates/Joe Biden/Hugo Chavez conspiracy,” they are what we have to follow to stay open.
Let’s say it louder for the people in back:
YOU AREN’T MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE FOOD & LIQUOR LICENSES
To recap
Tables 1 & 2: A big group of 12 we had to split between two six-tops is merging with Table 3 in a weird orgiastic medley fueled by White Claws, Busch Light, SHOTS!, and the edited version of WAP because someone was too cheap to play the uncensored version. (Was Ben Shapiro in the bar and I missed it?)
Table 3: While COVID Cowgirl was letting her freak flag fly ever so close to the sun, the other girls kept inviting random men in the order line over to drink and dance. Well, mostly to drink because they stopped paying a while ago. In fact, most of the people in this story stopped buying anything way before I thought about kicking them out. In hindsight, that should have been my first clue.
Table 4: Well, Table 4 was technically empty because it was at the other end of the fucking bar. If you can’t sit still and drink PBR, then something is wrong with you. It’s literally the beer of passively watching baseball or at most, playing slow-pitch softball.
Table 5: These random dads weren’t even worthy of a nickname. They just pissed me off because they riled everyone up, telling the Karens I had a power complex and I was angry about some dumb bullshit.
What happened at 9:23?
Tired of yelling at children who couldn’t follow rules written and posted on every surface, I went over to Big Mac and MoHawk behind the bar, asked each of them if it was OK that I kicked some tables out. Each agreed, knowing we had a line forming outside and lamenting that each party either already paid, or weren’t likely to tip big anyway.
So, I turned off the music, had the lights raised, and kicked 22 people out of the bar at the same time. About 1/3 of the total patrons. As ratios go, not bad to handle by one person.
Yes, I got a lot of heat. Table 1 refused to leave, so I made a deal that only the Nerd and his two main antagonizers had to go. Table 3 flipped me so many birds I thought I heard Tippi Hedren scream from the bathroom. Table 4 was cleaned off by Peanut for some halfway decent people, and the newly formed Table 5 hurled the following phrases from Karen Ichi:
“Do you know how much I paid for this?” she said holding up a tall PBR.
Yeah, free cover and $4.25.
The random husband gave me a disapproving glance. I made another not-so-subtle wave toward the door.
“I will NOT be kicked out by a DEMOCRAT! This is Trump 2020 Country!”
She said as the registered Independent told her the Democrat behind the bar already cut you off and the Anarchist at the door doesn’t give a shit who you voted for so long as your tantrum throwing ass was leaving post-motherfucking-haste.
By 9:38, the music was back on, the lights were dimmed, the people cycled through and bar St. Patri—
JUST KIDDING
At 10:39, nine minutes after last call, a lanky 6-foot-6 kid wouldn’t leave a table of girls alone (the replacements at Table 5), nor wear a mask to save his life. I gave him a choice — go back to your table and sit until close or leave.
He chose to box me out like it was Shaq and Yao in the 2004 Western Conference Playoffs. But you don’t post up if you can’t get the shot off. I took a step to the left and let his momentum carry him backward while I turned to the side, advanced a step, and put a walloping left clotheslining arm across his chest. Grappled with my right hand and up, up, and away we went. Thirty yards from the back of the bar to the street.
That was all the excitement from St. Paddy’s Day 2021.
And yet somehow, the next weekend would be worse!
