What'll It Be?

It's my third week of bar-tending. My 8th shift. I work in a hotel bar on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights-- a hotel for business travelers-- and there are very few "guests" on the weekends. And the hotel is by the Mall, directly across the street from Michaels Crafts (no apostrophe) so there are no walk-ins, only hotel guests.

The only stuff around here is mall-area stuff: some loco border restaurants, a stereo store called Tweeter, a Zales, another diamond store just like Zales, a few other hotels that look exactly like mine, a Best Buy, a Chili's, a giant pet store called Pet Quarters. Most of these get the possessive treatment by the locals: Tweeter's, Best Buy's, etc.

Some nights I have no customers, some nights I have a few. Last night I had the most ever. My first customers were a newly-wed couple married only hours earlier at City Hall. They were about 50 years old and the woman asked if I had Champagne. I was happy to report that we did have "sparkling wine"-- personal-sized bottles of Freixenet-- and would they like a couple of bottles. She asked if the bottles had corks that made a popping noise. They did.

The groom was in the ink game, and wove fascinating yarns like the one about the latest Bacardi label that has invisible, bootleg-proofing ink detectable only under a black light. Then there was his racountement concerning his company's production of money-printing ink for the federal government. "We got Brinks trucks comin' and guys with shotguns picking up green ink." After the Freixenet, he ordered a Mudslide. I Googled it.

Last week I had a woman, whose birthday it was, treating herself to a glass of wine before taking herself to dinner at the Old Country Buffet adjacent to Best Buy's. When she returned she seemed really depressed and finished another Robert Mondavi Chardonnay rather quickly before adjourning to her room.

On the Thanksgiving weekend, "Mainers" flocked to the hotel from all over the state to take advantage of the early morning Black Friday deals. Even into the night, groups of three and four would return to the hotel just long enough to unload their cars, the luggage trolley dripping with sacs de joie.

I had a single mother at the bar the other night whose daughter was upstairs sleeping after a swim in the pool. As the woman slipped into drunkenness, I learned about her visits to the Methodone clinic and life in general in Milo, Maine.

Later that night, a guy slunk up to the empty bar and sheepishly ordered a "Mar-ga-rita." He just turned 21 and I was his first bartender. "Let me ask you something" he said. How much liquor is in a Mar-ga-rita?" I showed him the conical metal shot glass and he twisted his lips around and asked if maybe I could use less. He spent the next 45 minutes talking about Christ.

I finally got a chance to make a Martini last night: dirty, up with olives.