Babble

“We have enough youth, how about a fountain of smart?”

I thought it was funny, yet sort of true. 😉

I had a crusty old man of a customer the other night. He sat at the bar and went on and on about education and how it’s so important, and don’t get me wrong, I agree with him. But, it felt like I was being lectured by my Father. Part of me wanted to say “Hey buddy, I’m not uneducated, and there’s more to my life than working behind this bar.” But the other part of me just didn’t care what he thought.

Normally I delight in telling people like him that I have an alternate career, one that is ‘respected’ . Instead, I just let him continue to think what he wanted to think, because really, why ruin his day? He was obviously having fun with his feelings of superiority, and I was more sad that people still judge by looks and jobs than anything.

The next night I had a guy come in, and stand at the front door yapping on his cell phone. To get this image right you need to know that there are tables right near the front door. and one of our regulars, K, sits there every day after work and quietly has a few beers.

So after this new guys stands there yapping for a good solid four minutes K leans over and tlls him to take his conversation elsewhere. I think it’s understandable, (but he should’ve told me if the guy was bothering him…not said it himself) Talking in cell phones when others are having quiet time is rude. But this guy gets even louder and curses at K. Just as I get ready to open up my mouth and tell them to take it ouside the new guy comes and sits at the bar, still yapping loudly on his cell phone, and orders a beer.

Now If a customers is sitting at table talking on his cell phone, I will NOT go over to take his order. I think it’s rude. If/when he’s ready to order I’ll serve him, but it’s not my job (plus I think it’s rude of me) to interupt his obviously very important covnersation to take a drink order.

So, New Guys yaps on his phone and in the middle of his sentence orders a bere from me, as I debate how I want to handle it, he say’s into the phone. “Nothing, just some idiot Yahoo being an asshole. Do you see me caring?”

I lean forward and say, “No, But I see Me caring.”

So he gets off his phone, I serve him his beer. He gives a lot of pouty arrogant attitude. I tell him, and I tell K, that it’s over. I don’t want any comments between them. K, knows me well, and knows I will kick him out, so he stays quiet.

Alls good for a bit, then New guy, gets up when I’m heading over to K with his bill and grabs the bill from my hand and says, from the bar, nice and loud. “Hey buddy, I’m gonna pay your bill to show you what a nice guy I am, and what a low class thing that was for you to do.” All K say is “Sasha.” I tell New Guy to sit down and shut up.

K pays his bill, leaves. New Guy asks me.
“Why is it ok for a redneck like him to call out slurs to a nice business man like me? I come in here fairly often and that loser was rude.”

OK here you go. “First of all, he’s not a redneck and calling him names isn’t what a nice busniessman would do. Second, he was right, it’s rude for you to stand next to his table while he’s tryingto have a quiet drink and yap on your phone. Take it outside or to the back hallway, away from people. Third, it was unnnessesary for you to make a scene when he asked for his bill, after it had all been settled for a while”

*pout* “I was just tryingto show him how low class he was.”

“You standing up and calling him low class was tacky. If you really wanted to show him class, you would’ve either dropped it when I said drop it, or just sent over a beer, through me, and left it at that. But standing up and tryingto look like a the big man by calling someone else names only made you look bad.”

What I didn’t say was, K was a regular who came in every day, not only to watch pay per view hockey games, and K is an executive in a pretty big company, who always sit’s quietly to decompress after work. Just because he was wearing jeans and a denim jacket did not make him a redneck…as anyone in Alberta should know. What I didn’t say was I also asked another of the customers who was nearby what had been said. The cutomer told me K had asked him to talk elsewhere and New Guy had responded with immediate profanity and name calling.

So, my point is…where’s the fountain of smart? Why haven’t people learned that you can’t always judge a book by it’s cover?

Oh, and New Guy, the “businessman” went out for a smoke and never came back to pay his bill. Yup. Real Classy. 😐