Girl at Party: “On Facebook they charge you a dollar to send a message to someone you’re not friends with. What if that happened in real life, you asked someone to talk to you and they said “no, give me a dollar?”“

Me: “That’s what I do, I’m a bartender.”

Gaining points for simplicity, creativity, and immaculate penmanship in the face of inebriation, regulars at a neighborhood watering hole required just two letters and a few well placed dashes to turn a perfectly respectable sign into classic redneck fare.

Customer: I just moved here from New Orleans in December.  I studied journalism at LSU.  Where are you from?

Me: Connecticut.

Customer: That’s part of New York, right?

(pause)

Me:  It’s…a state.

Customer: But it’s part of New York, right, like the Bronx or Queens?

Me: It’s…one of the 50 states.

Customer: Oh…

(looking dumbfounded, takes a sip of beer and changes the subject)

Customer:  Is the house ale any good?

Me, handing a rocks glass filled with foam to the customer, by way of providing a free sample:  Here.  It comes out of the tap that way.

Customer:  Am I supposed to drink it this way?

Me:  There are many ways to drink the house ale, none of them so good as NOT drinking the house ale.

Customer, upon receiving a free shot loudly heralded as Patron by another customer, but actually Montezuma, our much-maligned well tequila:  “God, this is smooth…you can’t beat Patron.”
Same customer, upon receiving a free taste warningly heralded by me as being Montezuma, but actually Patron:  It’s not as bad as I thought it would be, but it’s no Patron.

Me, proudly indicating my Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist honor medal:  Do you like my medal?
Naval officer:  An ESWS?!  It took me 18 years to earn that!  How did you get that?!
Me, pointing:  I gave that guy free onion rings.

Customer, taking a sip of $3 house beer and looking pensive:  It has a distinct fishiness to it.  It’s like if Poseidon were an amateur beer maker, this is what he would create.

Co-bartender, on a date falling apart at the end of the bar:  I would never bring a date here.  It would be like bringing a date to McDonald’s.

(pausing)

That said, if a guy bought me a Big Mac on a first date, I would probably fuck him.

Customer, listening pensively to CCR’s “Looking Out My Back Door” blasting in the background:  Is this Elvis?

Me:  Yes.

Customer, indicating a nearly full pint of Guinness and a nearly full can of PBR:  Whose drinks are those?

Me, shrugging:  They took one sip, tipped me, and left.  Clearly, they’re in the mafia.  (pausing) If you want the drinks, they didn’t look sick.

Customer:  I’ll drink the Guinness.  You don’t think it has Plague, do you?

Me:  Unlikely. (wrinkling nose at the can) The PBR on the other hand, sip or no sip, most decidedly has Plague.