I’ve stated in the past that when I write these weekly articles, I rarely have a set plan. I don’t do any research or prep work, or even have a specific subject in mind. I usually just wait for something cool, weird, or inspiring to happen throughout the course of the week, and then write about it. If nothing worthy happens, then I just go with a story from my past. Some weeks, they just write themselves, and this was one of them. An entire week worth of “4th of July caliber” people has made it almost too easy.
I mentioned last week that this holiday brings masses of “the best and brightest society hast to offer” to our beaches. Most people don’t know this about me, but on rare occasions, I’ve been known to employ sarcasm. No, it’s true. The aforementioned description of last week’s average visitor was one such occasion. I don’t mean to sound as if I’m generalizing all of our town’s visitors from last week. There were thousands of really great, well-behaved people here, upon whom my livelihood depends. Not everyone who graced our town with their presence for a little R&R possesses an inordinate level of social ineptitude and a complete lack of couth. There was however, a massive contingency of individuals who should require a handler of some sort before entering a public domain. Someone skilled in the art of humanity to dress them, feed them, and speak for them.
I am a perpetual student of behavior and humanity. I’m constantly observing people and taking away as much as I can on a daily basis—positive or negative. I learned many things last week. I learned that manners have become obsolete, that simple courtesy is all but extinct, that stupidity knows no bounds, that common sense is anything but “common”, and that many people either refuse to check their look in the mirror before going out into public, or they just don’t care. It was a very educational week for me. I also learned that most of these character foibles are not relegated to any specific age group or demographic. I met and waited on hoards of incredibly rude people ranging in age from 21 to 80 with all stops in between.
Let’s first discuss manners from this list. Such a seemingly simple concept and something that was vigorously preached to me as a child and yet something that often times seems to no longer exist. If the words “please” and “thank you” were commodities last week, their value would have sky rocketed based on the simple laws of supply and demand. I didn’t hear them much over that seven-day span. My thirteen-month-old daughter has a limited vocabulary of approximately ten words. She’s got the basics down, Dada, Mama, hi, cat, dog, bottle, etc. But another of her newly discovered bits of verbiage is the word “please.” She knows it, she can say it, she knows its meaning, and she uses it in context. She is already aware that saying please first is a requirement to obtain certain things that she wants. If a person whose most impressive new trick is that she now brings me a fresh diaper to make me aware of the fact that she’s crapped herself can understand this, then why is it so difficult for adults to comprehend the use of simple manners?
Or perhaps it’s just relegated to me and my line of work. Maybe these people are of the misconception that since I am JUST a bartender that I am beneath them and don’t deserve or require proper treatment. I guess I’m just not high enough on the societal food chain to be worthy of them wasting a “please” or “thank you” on. Ah ha, maybe they’re right. After all, I am nothing more than a lowly servant boy in a resort town placed here for the sole purpose of fetching food and drink for those who mistakenly believe themselves to be upper echelon. It’s easier just to smile, take it, and let them believe that I’m just an idiot who does this because I have no other skills. Though I would more than happily match wits, I.Q. and character with any one of them.
To illustrate how pathetic it’s gotten, I’ll now tell you a quick, true story of an exchange that happened just last week. A gentleman in about his early thirties approached the bar I was working and the following exchange ensued:
ME: How ya doin? What can I get for you?
HIM: Fine thanks. May I please have a rum and coke? (He smiled and already had his money in hand).
ME: Sure thing. (I turned and immediately made his drink and set it in front of him).
HIM: Thank you very much. (He extended his arm toward me with cash to pay for the drink).
ME: You know what, that one is on me.
He then gave me a completely befuddled look as if I were trying to pick him up or something. We all know that I have a house full of kids at home to bolster my hetero street creds.
HIM: Why?
ME: Sir, I’ve been standing behind this bar tonight so far for about six hours. I’ve probably waited on over five hundred people and made over a thousand drinks. You are the very first person I’ve served tonight who said both “please”, and “thank you” to me. That goes a long way, so I’d just like to buy your drink for you.
He smiled and thanked me again leaving a generous tip on the bar. I turned and went to the computer to start myself a check for the drink. As I looked back at him, he still seemed a bit perplexed by what had just happened. He then smirked slightly and briefly bowed his head with a nod or two as if to say, “wow, that’s pretty sad but I get where you are coming from.”
I never saw him again that night, but that very brief exchange with a complete stranger gave me a tiny little glimmer of hope and it actually cheered me up; one flickering beacon of light in a vast sea of obnoxious.
Unless you didn’t wake up last week, then you know it was pretty hot. Unseasonably hot, in fact, even for July. Several days found temperatures in the triple digits. While standing behind an outdoor bar last week I was absolutely amazed by how many people felt inexplicably compelled to give me the weather report as if it were some hot off the presses bit of info that only they possessed. An astonishingly high percentage of the people I waited on felt the need to tell me that it was hot. Each of them seemed to think that they were the first person to render me privy to the knowledge about the unusually high temperatures. Many of the conversations were almost laughable. I just wanted to scream; “We’re not Skyping each other from different hemispheres. I’m right freakin’ here!”
There’s really not that drastic a climatic deviation from your side to my side of the three feet of bar top that separates us. Some of them acted truly surprised by the temperature at the bar. It was as if they were expecting a dramatic atmospheric change between where they were standing now, and the outside of their rented condo they just left which is six blocks away. Others seemed angry with me about the heat as if I could control it at an outdoor bar.
While being able to alter and control weather patterns as I see fit is in fact on my bucket list, I don’t yet possess that power. Others were just miserable and taking it out on me. I couldn’t help but think to myself, “I’m out here because I have to be. What’s your excuse? Just turn around and walk the hell inside. No one is stopping you.”
But each of them wanted to make sure they reminded me about the heat as if I were going to forget. I was sweating like a priest single handedly chaperoning a weekend long boy scout retreat. I’m eating table spoons full of margarita salt and drinking water by the gallon and I haven’t peed since yesterday. I get it! Is amateur meteorology a passionate hobby of yours or do you fancy yourself a super hero who answers to the name Captain Obvious?
We got through the heat and navigated the sea of stupidity and all and all, had a pretty good week. Once again, I’ve exhausted my allotted space and I was just getting on a roll. We’ll have to pick this up again next week. Not to worry though. As long as morons roam the Earth, and I have a keyboard and a handful of still functioning brain cells, we’ll have fodder for this column. Thanks for playing along.
Until next week,
Syd Nichols
