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Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Sometimes life imitates the Simpsons.

In between a somewhat disappointing trip to the children's museum (am I the only one who notices the stuff is falling apart?) and running to 4-H (Where I will now be volunteering as a leader of my son's Cloverbud group), I made a quick supper and sat down to watch the Simpsons with Kiddo and Super Ted.

This was the episode where Marge and Homer go on a tour of wine country, and Marge starts drinking as much as Homer. In the course of it, Homer does something Really awful to Marge. He sits in the local bar where the bartender, Moe, asks him some variation of "Why the long face?" This is what happens next:

Moe: You can tell me. I've heard everything.

Homer whispers in Moe's ear.

Moe: That's awful! That's the most horrible thing I ever heard! You . . . why, you deserve to drink watered-down beer out of a chipped mug, while sitting on a stool with a big sharp nail sticking straight up!

Moe now smacks Homer's mug on the edge of the bar--chipping the entire rim-- then pours a cup of water into Homer's half-finished beer. He relocates Homer one stool over onto a stool with a big pointy nail sticking out of it.

Homer: Can I have some peanuts?

Moe: OK, but I get to poke you with this sharp stick (which he produces from under the bar).

Moe resumes the classic position of a bartender, leaning with one elbow on the bar, bar rag in hand, all the while poking away at Homer with his stick.

Moe: (poke, poke, poke) So, did ya see the game last night? (Poke, poke)

Now, that was possibly the funniest thing I have EVER seen on the Simpsons. Everybody I told that to at work last night (Yes, I went after 4-H) thought it was mildly amusing, except the bartender, who laughed so hard she almost wet herself!

See, you have to realize that the the part of this conversation in dark blue is the part that is really happening, and the part in lavender is what is going on inside the bartender's head. We who work in bars totally GET IT and love it. I have, many times, had to listen to a conversation where they guy is telling me how he beat up his kids, cheated on his wife, extorted his company's money, and stole food from starving orphans, while I smile and nod and say, Wow! what an interesting life you've had. Let's go have that dance now.

Now on to work. There were few customers and many dancers, which means, once you land a seat next to a potential customer, you stay there. To get up prematurely means you risk losing your only chance for a sale in the immediate future, and furthermore you will wind up staring at the fish tank or the silent TV, with no one to talk to. So I sat with one cheap idiot who had tipped me a dollar for a 5-minute massage ( I gave it back to him), a mooncalf who was about to go on house arrest for the second time, and this third knucklehead who started talking about how he had shot his dog.

THe whole story is, the guy had been divorced and was by his own admission sleeping with any slut that would have him. The dog had a habit of waking up the women in the middle of the night and scaring them away. Well, the dog took a liking to this one woman, and allowed the woman to stay in the house. Eventually this knucklehead married the (slut) woman, on the dog's recommendation. Eventually the
(slut) woman reverted to the behavior that got her in the guy's bed in the first place, and started sleeping with the guy's boss. So this asshole shoots the dog.

I feel ya, Moe.

3 comments:

Heather said...

Oh. My. God. You can't can't make up that kind of stupidity. What a dickheaded moron.

I understand what you mean about the potential sale. I've never worked in a bar or anything, but I get it. The conversations I've had IN bars with people are almost as bad. The things people confess to total strangers just blows me away. More than the thought of what a jerk they are, or how stupid they are, is "Why the hell are they TELLING me this? Do I look like a shrink??"

Erin said...

You made my day. I had a horrible night tonight, but your post cracked me up. I was just reading on the stripper site about how some of the women view the various absurd aspects of this job, and now this. Drunks in a bar WILL tell you anything . . . and EVERYTHING.

Holly said...

I have a friend that's a vet. They have an extremely high burn out rate because of things like that. The stories she tells . . .