Well, I'm still a bartender!

If you can make it through a weekend at The Smoke, I think you can make it anywhere. Except, in my case, Taco Bell, Subway, Applebees, and other places too depressing to mention. Oh, my five-minute job at Wendy's, where I got fired because I was accidentally hired by the drive-thru guy. No severance on that one.

Anyhow, tips have been great and Kelly was really supportive while I found my "beer feet." Working a couple slow weekdays didn't really help me prepare for the weekends, though, because I think their clientele is socially programmed to go absolutely bucknuts starting on Thursday night. Men's room feces were definitely worst on Saturday, but by Sunday everyone has the runs, which are harder to pick up, so I didn't have to swab the tops of the showerhead system.

I only had one guy throw a glass at me, and Russell, the bouncer, took him out front and kicked him in the neck. Russell's kind of a loser—he wanted to be a musician but he couldn't find anyone to be in his band. It turns out that he wanted to be the singer in a band, "like Vedder," but didn't know how to sing, and thought he could only learn by singing in front of a band. That was his argument. He's built like a firetruck, though, and doesn't drink, so he always has the upper hand.

That's all I know. I have the next two days off and I think I'm going to try to spend some time with Beef.

I'm a bartender!

Why didn't I think of this before? I talked to Kelly, the cool bartender at The Smoke, and she said she wouldn't mind some help. They pay is just minimum wage, but tips on the weekends are pretty healthy, especially if I wear "something tight." Fair enough, I get the picture.

After they closed on Saturday she showed me how to shut the place down for the night, and taught me a few tips about dealing with typical bar problems (The Smoke is a dirty working-class bar and things can get rough). There's mace on the shelf under the register, and a crowbar if that doesn't work. There's also an emergency switch for if a brawl is brewing, which immediately switches the jukebox to "Free Bird." Apparently the opening refrain helps grease monkeys and rednecks recognize each other's inherent humanity, or something like that.

I suppose the worst part is swabbing the bathrooms. The women's room is pretty typical, usually just cigarettes and sometimes a little barf in the sink. The men's room is more like the high-fiber primate house at the zoo. There's a powerful showerhead/disinfectant system in the ceiling, so you just shut the door and flip the hidden switch that turns it on. Sometimes, though, the guys get feces on the tops of the showerheads themselves and you have to hit those with a sponge, which is pretty nasty.

I'm starting on Tuesday, a slow night, so we'll see how it goes. Hopefully Beef won't show up in his Mountie outfit.