Some traditions need to be amended

“Why are you wearing that ridiculous hat?” I asked our longtime server wearing a jauntily placed Santa cap.

Now, I’m used to customers coming in wearing everything under the sun: bowler hats, kilts, platform boots, you name it — I’ve seen it. It’s also interesting how you can sum some people up in a simple description.

“That woman out there is really putting me through my paces,” once remarked another server.

“Which one?” I asked, knowing that often pointing isn’t the best idea — something every bartender who has had someone point in the general direction of the back bar, specifically, and say “that bottle there” will attest to.

“The one in the gold flowered headdress with the giant rhinestone on it,” the server said.

More information was contained in that sentence than just a simple description — much more.

Just like saying, “Those guys wearing matching ascots,” or “the women in tiaras,” or “that one guy with a tiny service dog in a nursing sling.” Not much more information is really needed. Often, it’s given, but it’s not really needed.

Once I had a 20-something person complain that I was being judgmental when I asked for her ID. I was. In fact, that’s exactly what that transaction is supposed to be. It’s judgmental. I was judging if she was of legal age. And it’s literally my job to do so.

But people complain about all sorts of things all the time. Just sometimes it hits differently than at other times.

“Excuse me,” said the couple ensconced behind the beer taps.

“Yes?” I replied.

“It appears that you like those people over there,” said the man, pointing, “better than you like us.”

I followed the direction of his point to the end of the bar. I thought he was kidding at first. But he wasn’t.

“Do you mean that lady and that little girl?” I asked, also pointing, just to be sure.

“Yes,” he said with righteous indignation. “You are being nicer to them than you are to us.”

The woman in his company nodded vigorously.

“That’s my wife and daughter,” I said. “It’s my birthday, and they came down to see me.”

I didn’t expect an apology, and I didn’t get one. But I did think of science-fiction fantasy author Glen Cook. He wrote in his novel “Black Company,” “More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way.” And he wasn’t making that up.

But back to my Santa-capped co-worker.

“It’s very hard to yell at someone in a Santa hat,” he explained.

His words echoed with me for a long time, coming soon after that couple with the hurt feelings. And since my birthday falls in the middle of the holiday season, I often find myself working. I’m not complaining; it’s just the way it is.

But for the next 10 years or so, I always wore a festive holiday vest during the holiday season — you know — just to be safe. And that often included wearing one on my birthday. If you can get used to a Christmas tree being there on every birthday, a vest isn’t that much of a leap.

That is, until four years ago. I was scheduled on my birthday, and I dutifully worked on it, just like I have done many, many times. And I wore my festive vest.

Some of my friends stopped by. They brought in some flowers and balloons for my birthday. I was touched. Social media has its difficulties, but it remembers birthdays really well.

My friends took a picture of me holding my balloons and smiling in my holiday vest. I still have that photo, and I remember it every year now. Sadly, not so much because of what happened before it, but rather what happened after it. Less than a minute later, some guy literally yelled at me for five minutes because he thought his table was running later than it should.

Leaving me with these thoughts:

• I don’t wear a holiday vest on my birthday anymore, mainly because I haven’t worked on my birthday since.

• “There are no self-proclaimed villains. Only regiments of self-proclaimed saints,” Cook also wrote.

• That server in the Santa cap recently retired to the South of France. And that idea is not lost on me.

• It might be your holiday, but it just might also be someone else’s birthday. Just saying.