Maximum Beer, Minimum Wage

A little more than two years ago, after I’d gotten discourteously dumped, I had pretty much resigned myself to a life of miserableness. This was, of course, long before I decided caring is strictly for suckers, so at the time, being alone was just about the worst thing in the world. This was further magnified by the fact that my roommate had chosen the week I go the boot to start dating his current girlfriend, and had decided it was the most opportune time for him to begin canoodling with her in our living room, and being just about as schmoopy as humanly possible whenever I was within a several foot radius. But after six weeks of my super pathetic behavior, I forced myself to cheer up when one of my best friends from college, Diego, came to visit while he interviewed for residency programs.

Diego is one of my most reliable friends. We met the first day of Freshman year, and although our various friends cast us aside at various points in time (usually always because they, too, were mid-schmoop with some loser neither Diego nor I approved of), we stayed faithful to one another, and always had each other’s backs. We were both perpetually single (which in college is totally fine, because being single when you’re twenty doesn’t carry nearly the uncomfortable weight it does when you’re rounding the bases toward thirty, no matter how you spin it), and sometimes a little bit whiney about it. Yet finally, the summer before I got broken up with, and after many long, sufferable years, Diego found himself a fabulous lady. She wasn’t making the trip to Boston with him, and I was secretly a little happy to know I’d still have ostensibly Single Diego for my wingman and things could be just as they were in college.

As soon as I picked Diego up from the airport, we went and picked up a thirty-rack of beer as if we were still in our decrepit apartments in Baltimore, looking forward to graduation. He had interviews for the next forty-eight hours, but by Saturday night all of Diego’s various medicinal obligations had been settled and a full scale college throwback weekend officially commenced.

A few weeks earlier, I had won a free happy hour at a bar in Boston. On the designated night, all my drinks would be free, and anyone I brought with me could drink for half off for two hours. I scheduled the event for when Diego was in town and told all my friends to be prompt so we wouldn’t miss a moment of immoderation, but when my group of twelve assembled it became clear I had made a very, very big mistake: everyone was coupled up. Only Diego and I stood alone as non-lovers, and even he had betrayed me and had a girl back home. They all strolled in holding hands, cuddling from the cold, adjusting one another’s scarves and hat-ruffled hair. Juuust perfect. But still, I tried to enjoy the free beers and forget I was, yet again, alone. I mean, if free drinks don’t make you feel better, nothing will.

We staked out a nice place for our group right in front of the bar. Throughout the two hours, I ordered beers from the same tattooed bartender with an atrocious Boston accent. I promised him I’d generously tip him at the end, despite the fact my drinks had been free. He seemed doubtful, but I insisted I would be true to my word. As the clock closed in on the end of our two hours, I still had half a beer to go, but didn’t want to pass up the opportunity for another free drink. I nonchalantly handed my half-full beer to a friend, turned around, and ordered another one. This is what happened next:

Tattooed Bartender: Are you trying to steal a beer?
Me: Um...no?
TB: You think I’m stupid?
Me: Noooo... [When inside I was saying, “Yes!!”]
TB: Who do you think you are? You’re trying to steal from us! I see your friend with the beer!
Me: OK, I’m not trying to steal from your bar. I will happily pay for the Bud Light.
TB: You going to tip us?
Me: I had planned on it.
TB: No you’re not.
Me: OK. Fine. I’m not.
TB [in a dramatic rage!!]: You probably don’t even make forty grand a year!

First of all, at the time, no, I did not even make forty grand a year. Second of all, let’s be real here, I bet EVERYONE who wins these happy hours pulls the same stunt at the end of their allotted time. Do I look even remotely like a criminal? Was I trying to hold you up? Are you the owner of this bar? No, no, and no. Plus, most importantly, just what is it about me that could possibly say “minimum wage?”

I turned around and told my hand-holding friends about what an a-hole the bartender was, and as I did so, Diego excused himself and headed to the bar. As he did, and entire cascade of cocktail napkins landed on my head. The bartenders were throwing napkins at me (Ooooo, I’m so terrified!!), and despite Diego’s efforts to assuage them and assure them I was not a kleptomaniac, we all chugged our remaining drinks and make a hasty getaway, the bartenders trailing us, informing me I was no longer welcome at their fine establishment. Let me tell you, there’s no better way to boost one’s self esteem than by being banished from a bar via napkins, under protection of a slew of boys who all have girlfriends, and all eye you with that “Ah yes, now I know why you don’t have a boyfriend” look. Lucky me. 

We ended up relocating to a classically dirty dive across the street and danced like teenagers until the doors were closed. It was just like being in college again, surrounded by couples who were all over one another, invisible yet again despite my momentary surge of (unwarranted) attention. Diego might have been there, but soon enough he, too, was blabbing on and on and on about his girlfriend. And then, in the cab, just as I was beginning to think that maybe things really had changed, maybe I really was the only single person left on the entire planet and that I was doomed to perish beneath a mountain of cocktail napkins, he told me with his head hung in shame that he had ironically first told his girl he loved her while drunk and dancing to Chris Brown. It was classic Diego, silly and weird and beyond awkward, but if there was hope for him, then there had be hope for me, too, even if I did fish a cocktail napkin out of my bra that night.

My nefarious self and the Bud Light in question