People may change, but the human situations doesn’t
It was another new face. They come and go all the time. Bars are peculiar animals. The names and the faces change, but the behaviors don’t. There is always that guy on the make or that woman who wants to be left alone, or vice versa.
“Are you guys taking names for seats?” he asked, observing such behavior happening.
“Let me know,” he said, picking up his Martini and moving off into the crowd.
Where I work, the bartenders control the seating. It’s all based on the principle of first come, first served. Always. No exceptions.
“You do know that not all bars do that,” a friend once said to me.
Yes, I do, but they should. It’s much more civilized. The only people who ever complain are the people who are not civilized. And it’s certainly nice to know that right from the start.
“Who’s that?” asked a woman who just five minutes before had ordered wine from me by saying, “You pick it, I will do whatever you say.”
“Whatever I say?” I asked.
“Whatever you say,” she cooed. And for those who have never heard a “coo” before, trust me — you will know it when you hear it.
“Why is he not over here talking to me?” she asked.
“Do you want me to go ask him?”
“That would be vulgar,” she said, before using her tongue to locate the paper straw in her drink and then sucking it down while looking directly at me.
“Is that a yes? Or a no?”
“Yes, of course,” she cooed again.
When the seat opened up next to her, I made sure he got it. I might not control when someone sits, but often I can control where.
“Buy me a drink and tell me I’m pretty,” she said to him.
“Uh, OK.”
Guys are so easy.
He wasn’t a great-looking guy, not that I am a great judge of such things. But he was age appropriate, and he was there. And sometimes that is all that matters.
But things weren’t going to be quite that easy. She had to use the restroom, so he did what anybody else would do while she was gone — he began talking to her female friend. And that really was the wrong thing to do. Because when she returned, she demanded the check and then proceeded to fight with her friend for five minutes over who had ordered the Prosecco.
“Are you mad?” her friend asked.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely sure?”
“Absolutely.”
But she was mad. Obviously.
Five more minutes of hushed, whispered conversation and they decided not to pay the bill, at least not yet. But 10 minutes in a bar is an eternity — just ask anyone who has had to wait half that long for a drink. They will tell you, often loudly, or later, even louder, online.
He was now talking to a brunette woman on his other side.
“What about your wife?” she asked.
“She’s not my wife.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“I don’t even know her.”
“Well, she practically has her leg on your lap.”
I peered over the bar and she practically did.
“I just met her,” he pleaded.
They say you only rent beer but the same is true of Prosecco because the cooer left to use the restroom again. Sometimes frequent bathroom trips are not about bodily needs, but more like a chance for a fashion show walk.
“Uh,” she said as the cooer walked by. “I think your girlfriend just pulled my hair,” she said, looking at the back ends of her long brown hair, as if they were going to say something.
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Maybe you should tell her that.”
When the cooer returned, another hushed argument ensued and eventually we figured out exactly who had ordered that Prosecco. And let me just say, she wasn’t happy about it.
They finally left.
“She’s wasn’t my girlfriend,” he said again. “Here, let me take care of your tab to prove it.”
That seemed to work because when she left, she gave him her business card.
“When you’re hot, you’re hot,” he said looking at me, pleased with himself.
“Hey there,” said a new guy as he sat in the brunette’s former seat.
“I am so hot!” said the hot man again, as if to verify that verbally.
“Sure,” said the new guy. “Buy me a drink and I will tell you whatever you want to hear.”
Hot guy looked at me except with an entirely different look in his eyes.
Leaving me with these thoughts:
• People change but situations don’t. They are eternal.
• What do they call it when you go fishing for one type of fish but catch another?
• It never gets dull. It gets weird, but never dull.
• I suspect I am going to be seeing a lot more of that “hot” guy.