Playing Catch Up

(my bar)

It feels like an age since i've done anything blog related. I've worked 5 out of the last 7 nights, which is a bit of a shock to my system, and seems to have rendered me useless to the blogging world. I work behind the bar at a big Italian restaurant near home. I've worked in restaurants part-time since i was 16, and have dealt with a huge variety of interesting customers, who i'm sure will one day feature in my future best-selling novel. I do enjoy the work because you meet such a wide range of people and get to watch how they react in social situations, whilst having the physical barrier of the bar to separate you from them. I also love guessing what dishes people will go for, depending on the company they're in. The awkward first dates are my favourite to watch, as the couple run their eyes over the menu and look alarmed at the amount of spaghetti and 'messy dishes' on offer.

I think another reason i've let regular blogging slip is because i've been going back and forth from the family home to the flat. I haven't had the time to sit down and think, which sounds odd because i've finished my course for the summer now and all i have is time. I've decided to set myself some little projects over the summer to keep myself busy. I don't like not having something to get up for in the mornings.

Coughlin's Law

I felt a little like Tom Cruise at work this weekend. It's been decided by some higher power that we are to serve cocktails, so a happy hour was spent being taught 14 different (but irritatingly similar) concoctions. We've been instructed to memorise each cocktail so we don't have to look them up when a customer orders one. I wondered whether devising a Tom Cruise style poem to remember the ingredients and names of the drinks would be a good way of ingraining them in my mind. You know the poem...

Last Barman Poet

I am the last barman poet.
I see America drinking the fabulous cocktails I make.
Americans getting stinky on something I stir or shake.
The sex on the beach, the schnapps made from peach,
The Velvet Hammer,
the Al-La-Bam-A Slam-a!

I make things with juice and froth: 
the Pink Squirrel, the 3-Toed Sloth. 
I make drinks so sweet and snazzy:
The Iced Tea, The Kamikaze, The Orgasm, The Death Spasm,
The Singapore Sling, The Dingaling.
America you've just been devoted to every flavor I got.
But if you want to got loaded,
why don't you just order a shot? 

Bar is open.

Magic

I was in a bar on Tuesday with a friend, happily putting the world to right when a man came over and asked if he'd be interrupting a serious conversation. We said he would be a little, thinking he was just coming over to chat, but he left us to it no problem. I went to the loos and came back to find him at our table talking to my friend. I was expecting to have to rescue her from being chatted up but as i sat back down, it turned out he was doing magic tricks. We let him carry on and he turned out to be really impressive. After sufficiently confusing us with several tricks he just wandered off to another table. He didn't ask or expect any money, or anything from us at all, he just wanted to show us some magic. I quite liked that. He let me keep the card that he'd tricked me with too :]