Bartending and Star Wars

   Over the next few months I didn’t do anything extravagant while trying to save money for the move. Chrissy decided to move out of her apartment and sleep on Deana’s couch to save money, so most of her possessions were put into storage.

  My brother stopped working at the bar because the hours were getting to him. He had proposed to his girlfriend on Halloween and they were planning on getting married in September. Jeff, the owner of the bar approached me and asked if I would want to replace him. Despite having no bartending experience, I jumped at the chance. I was a little nervous about it, but to help me, he would have Stacey, a sister of a guy Patrick we knew and played hockey with, work with me. She had bartending experience and would help me out a lot.

  My first customer was a Korean who asked me for a Carolla. After several ‘repeat that’s’, being nervous  and still not knowing what kind of drink a Carolla was, I asked Jeff. He laughed and said ‘Corona’. Then he gave me great advice: If someone asks you for a mixed drink you didn’t know, ask them how to make it. If they don’t know what’s in it, they shouldn’t be drinking it. Words to live by.

  I only worked Sunday nights during Football’s off-season so it was never usually busy. In the beginning it became busy because all of my friends came. And when a bar has a lot of cars in the parking lot, more people come because it’s ‘a happening spot’. The one thing I noticed about myself is that even though I have shy tendencies. In situations where I feel that I have control, like at work, bartending or as a regular at Fiddler’s Green, I can approach new people and be instantly social with them and make them feel at home and welcome. In turn, this may be why people tend to cling to me as a closer friend then others in my group.

  One night Matt had brought a girl by the bar and introduced her to me. The next time I saw her, she felt compelled to tell me that she wasn’t 21 yet and wanted to apologize for ‘deceiving me’. I asked what she meant and she said “by pretending she was older.” I told her I didn’t care, it’s not like I carded her. It’s not like I carded anybody. She still felt guilty. Ah, to be young and innocent.

  Another night it was pretty busy and one girl was flirting with all the guys at the bar. She was really cute petite girl and had come to the bar with some guy, but they got into an argument and he left. The problem came when she flirted with a guy at the bar who was dating someone. I tried to keep the girlfriend calmed down although she was getting visibly annoyed. And the flirty girl apologized. My rookie mistake was to offer alcohol to keep people calm. At one point the flirty girl decided to hold a spontaneous ‘kissing competition’. She needed contestants and drafted them. There was some minimal resistance from  a few of the guys, myself included. I told her no, but she insisted and leaned over the bar. Much to Stacey’s disapproval, it was hard to say no. I was in the lead, until she kissed the guy with the boyfriend. Why the guy joined in when his girlfriend was in the restroom was beyond me, because she was already jealous of the attention this boy was giving this girl and of course she found out and went ballistic. They started to get into a huge cat fight that immediately moved outside.

  These were two of the tiniest girls ever but it took all my strength to hold the one girl back while other guys held the other one. I talked her down after a few minutes and Stacey sent them all on their way. Stacey scolded me for allowing the situation to escalate like that and that it served me right that all I got for it were scratches on my arms and this story to tell.

 After about a month or so, Stacey would opt to leave early if the bar was dead. She was there for the money and if there was no money to be had, there was no point. I was there for the experience of it all so I told her I’d close up. After she left I’d hang out and tend to the one or two patrons in the bar if any. Then the door would open and a guy asks me if we were still open. I told him I was and he asked me for how long and I told him till whenever.

  It turns out he was part of the wait staff of the local T.G.I.F. and they all got off work and looking for a place to hang. So a huge crowd would come in and show me how they make all their crazy drinks. I had no idea how muck any drinks cost so all drinks were $4.00 in my mind and they would tell me it’s a lot of alcohol and give me 10’s and 20’s. Worked for me and Jeff, the owner, was impressed with the amount of money I was bringing in on a Sunday night.

In May, I bought two plan tickets to Colorado, so Chrissy could check out her school and we could scout out apartments. In actuality, I read in a magazine that the weekend before the new “Star Wars – Episode I” movie was coming out that they were going to have a “Star Wars Celebration” in Denver. I never went to a Sci-Fi convention before but I was always a nerd for Star Wars. I just assume I wouldn’t enjoy those other Sci-Fi conventions because in pictures, people dress up and I don’t recognize what half of them are supposed to be, but a convention just for Star Wars? That was different!

  We got to Colorado, and we rented an SUV. We stayed at my uncle’s house up in the mountains. In the 80’s he lived in the suburbs outside of Denver, but they built up around him and he kept moving further away. Now he lived in the woods on a mountain

and bought the land all around so no one could build around him. He still had an office downtown and we stopped there first. He showed us what he was currently working on. It was a digital slide show that was being presented to a town hall meeting with concept art about how a mountain side would look after a proposed mining company started working there. The depiction looked great, but you know in reality what you will get is an ugly construction site.

   As for the convention, I wasn’t too impressed. The best part were the models and costumes  from the original movies, including Luke’s life sized X-Wing. The convention was help at the Denver Air & Space museum so they had room in the hangar for it. They had actors there, but they couldn’t really answer questions because of “secrecy concerns’ so they only things we got to see were clips of actors in front of “Blue screen” as they describe what we are going to see. The rest of the convention was about trying to sell overpriced toys and merchandise that was twice as expensive as it would be in a week when stores would be allowed to sell them.

Anthony Daniels was there, he played C-3PO in all of the movies and I thought that was cool, until I found out later, after I moved there and met one of the girls who worked the convention and she told us that he was actually a jerk that spent the whole time complaining about the conditions he was working under, because it rained that weekend. You’re not really a robot, you’re from England and you should be used to the rain!