As a bartender, I’ve seen – and heard – it all

I passed the sporty little convertible on the freeway, marveling at the wonderfulness of Northern California, where you can drive around with your roof down in late October. As I passed, I noticed the bumper sticker that read, “Tops down,” and chuckled.

Innuendo is a funny thing because often it’s implied, and sometimes it’s inferred. Knowing the difference between those two things makes all the difference.

The two women sat at the bar and made immediate eye contact with me.

“Hello!” they both said in unison, matching both tone and timbre.

“Hello,” I said in return. “How are you, ladies?”

“We’ll be better in a few minutes,” one of them said.

I could have sworn that she winked when she said it. But maybe I inferred that. Sometimes a blink is just a blink.

We were in that strange fallow period between “before the time change” fall and “after the time change” autumn, that period when it is still light at 7 p.m. but the air has lost the warmth of summer and replaced it with a crispness that’s not quite winter.

The two women looked around.

“Not very busy right now,” the brunette said, her brown eyes shining but not blinking.

“Not yet,” I said.

I think she ordered a Sancerre, but memory can be a tricky thing, especially when one gets so many orders for that one specific thing. Her blond friend was different.

Two tastes of two different white wines yielded her preference for our most esoteric white wine, which just happens to also be my favorite.

The funny thing about recommending wines is that I don’t always recommend my personal favorite. I know what I like, but in my line of work, it’s more important for me to know what you like. After all, I will not be the one drinking it — at least not then and there.

But sometimes that does get me into trouble.

“Last week, you recommended the zinfandel as your go-to wine,” said the customer who was quickly becoming a regular.

“Well, last week it was,” I said.

From then on, he always requested tastes of the wines I recommended instead of relying solely on my opinion. No one ever said customer service was going to be easy.

The two women settled into one of those conversations about the opposite sex.

A huge difference between sitting at a bar and standing behind one is how people relate to you. I can approach anyone at any time from behind the bar, and nobody blinks an eye. But if I approached two women from the other side, an eyebrow or two might get raised.

We bartenders can also sometimes interject into a conversation without seeming intrusive. And then too, we also get invited into some conversations as well.

“Well, what do you think?” asked the blond woman.

“Me?” I asked.

“Yes, you,” said the blond.

“I didn’t hear the question,” I said.

“Yes, you did,” she said, smiling.

And, of course, I did. If I could hear the “What do you think?” part, I certainly could hear the other parts too. In fact, all of the other parts. If you can hear me, I can hear you. Funny how people at bars seem to forget that.

A bartender friend of mine once remarked that his favorite part of the job was engaging in all the crazy, convoluted conversations that one inevitably gets drawn into. And in many ways, I agree. He was talking about the “fun” crazy convoluted ones, not the other kind. And this was one of the former.

“You said that you will only date an older man with kids if you are closer in age to him than you are to his oldest child,” I said, confirming her suspicions.

“That’s right,” she said.

“What do you think about that?” she added.

Both women sat there looking at me.

“Well, let me see,” I said.

I then did a quick calculation about the age of my oldest daughter and me and then posited a prospective age based on that info.

“And?” she said.

“I guess that would work,” I said.

Our playful conversation continued on right up until they left.

And then it dawned on me that she was probably exactly the age that I had posited.

Leaving me with these thoughts:

• I wonder if that had dawned on her too?

• Inferring is on the part of the listener, whereas implying is on the part of the speaker — just saying.

• “Women love a man with a past, but they prefer a man with a present,” once quipped Mae West.

• I think that maybe in the future I may need to focus more on the wine.