The Bride Wore Black and White

Too much diversity at a bachelorette party is never a good thing.

I am accustomed to a cackle of screaming women drinking tequila through pinched noses and the occasional nipple slip. Keys On Main is Chuck E. Cheese for adults and for good reason. We’re the only bar in town that can replicate a moment in one’s past with a fire hose worth of Long Island Ice Teas. It’s my bread and butter. I am so accustomed to a gaggle of skanks barking at me their drink order that when somebody orders something politely I become slightly offended.

Rarely am I surprised about the group of people that come to the bar. One of the nice things about the club is that there is a lot of range regarding our guests. I like the fact that we throw a wide net with the customers that come to the club. With that said, I was put in a bit of tailspin with the last group of women I served on Thursday. They were celebrating their girlfriend’s upcoming wedding. Her name was Lindsay or Lindsie or Lindsey or Lindsee or any one of the 14 variations of the most gutter common name in Utah. What was surprising about the group was how unbelievably diverse the women were.

If you put the cast of The Facts of Life, Heathers, and Scooby-Doo in a blender, you’d have a cross-section of the goofiest bachelorette party I have ever poured drinks for. They were composed of the tough talking straight bourbon drinking chick, a ballerina, the bull dyke, the nerdy girl, an Inuit, a Mormon, a debutant and something that looked reanimated from the dead. It was like the beginning of a bad joke. The only thing that they shared was a love of getting on the pianos, shoveling nachos in their face and not tipping.

They were at the club on Thursday celebrating their friend’s pending nuptials. The girls dressed in black cocktail dresses while the bride wore white signifying she was the pure one of the group. I can’t wear white because I like eating in my truck too much. I am pretty sure that every white dress shirt I own is stained like a Rorschach test. I think the bride shares my love of eating on the run because the front of her dress looked like my food trough. I should have given her a lobster bib before I set her loose on her JagerBombs and penis shaped cupcakes.

Serious question: has anyone ever eaten a penis shaped baked good that was actually good? Every time somebody hands me a slice of pecker cake it tastes exactly what I imagine a penis does—buttery cardboard. In this day and age of boutique bakeries, shouldn’t there be one person who can bake a genital cake that is good enough to serve my mother? To be clear, my stomach is not a homophobe. Good cake is good cake whether it is shaped like Hogwarts, a soccer pitch or a gigantic black cock. I am tired of tempting diabetes with penis related cupcakes that disappoint.

The single worst part of waiting on bachelorette parties is getting money out of them. Of course the bride-to-be shouldn’t have to open her clutch to pay for her drinks but the rest of the group need to pony up. My experience is that people mistake having a party at the bar with going to a party at somebody’s house. It is very easy to be a mooch at a house party and scrounge for drinks and food like a feral pig or a Floridian. At the bar, on the other hand, the only thing free is the eye candy behind the bar and tap water. Everything else cost money.

They ordered rounds of super fun, super sweet shots for the table but insisted upon separate tabs. If I was sitting at the table and a round of shots came, I would just assume they were paid for and I would get the next round. There is genuine hurt in the eyes of the girls when they find out the White Gummy Bear or Alabama Slammer they just shot is going to set them back $6. I know you can’t put a price tag on fun but you can certainly measure out a bad time.

I guess what I am saying is the secret ingredient for a successful bachelorette party is drama. Between dresses getting ruined, drinks being spilt, falling off pianos, sitting on strange guys laps and horking in urinals (what the Hell were they doing in the men’s room anyway?), I think they had a good time.

I was in a weird place when they came in. The bar was relatively empty with the exception of the bachelorette party. The rest of the guests were transients from Rexburg Idaho for Pride and other out-of-towners looking for some action. As a whole the room was safe and kinda boring. These kind of nights are the perfect storm for me to check out. I have been tired all week doing work at the house and I limped into work praying for an easy shift.

Short of having a packed bar requiring me to turn the switch from slow play to gunslinger and throw drinks out as fast as possible, I can often slip into my head and loose a considerable amount of focus. I am at my best when I have some whacko wandering the club. When there is a half-indigent man sipping a Frangelico and soda paid for with tobacco stained loose change slinging an over-sized backpack and a Raider’s jersey, I am never better behind the bar. Throw a little danger into the bar and I am a God damn master at my trade. I guess I just need a little danger to keep my mind focused.

The best way to equate this phenomenon is to look to the natural kingdom. Ever see how a zebra gets a drink out of a mud pond filled with crocodiles in the Serengeti? He doesn’t just plop right in and lap a drink. He’s cautious. He quickly gets a drink and backs away. Like a middle linebacker his head is on a swivel looking out for predators. When I am behind the bar, I need to know the club has a couple of crocs out there to keep me sharp. The more crazies in the bar, the better I am at sling drinks.

Sadly the craziest person in the bar was the person cooking the nachos in the kitchen.

The bachelorettes drank like sailors on shore leave and ended their night being hauled out of the club in our complimentary wheelbarrows. I think the only reason I didn’t escape into the Twitter-sphere was the handful of businessmen who wanted to debate Utah’s liquor laws and where the women are. I am a fan of make hay while the sun is shining. Complaining to the bartender there aren’t enough chicks in the bar is tantamount to asking me where the local bordello is. Guys with wedding bands and a corporate credit cards looking for women while there is a bachelorette party slumped over their bar stool is the equivalent to the 9-year old kid afraid to jump off the high dive at the municipal swimming pool. These guys couldn’t close a screen door much less break the phalanx of bat-shit crazy bachelorettes. I think I might start carrying decorative blowup dolls or Fleshlights for these self-centered tool-bags.

I am glad most people don’t lap cocktails. Lapping is for dogs, zebras and Swedes. If I had to spend my entire shift watching Joe Six-Pack lap Coors Lights all night long I think I would definitely throw in the booze soaked bar towel. I guess that is the nature of the job. You can pick your nose but not your customers. That said, it doesn’t stop me from trying to do both at the club.

I am convinced, however, that Coors Light drinkers are the dumbest people on the planet. The fact that they need a beer label that it is cold-activated is proof they have an 8^th grade educations and hammer toes. Since finding out that a can of PBR has as many calories as a bacon-wrapped cheese cake, I went back to my roots and started drinking Miller Lite. People who drink Miller Lite will drink any other light beer if it is not available whereas Coors Light drinkers turn into sniveling babies when we run out of their beer of choice. Their reaction leads me to believe that Coors is brewed with Rocky Mountain water and estrogen.

I sincerely hope that Linday or Lindzee or however the Hell she spells her name has a wonderful wedding day. You’re only supposed to get married two to three times but I have to imagine the first time is the magical one. They clearly looked like they had a great time by the volume of vomit deposited in the two block radius of the club. Bartending at Keys has taught me that my guests’ experiences is paramount to any of the countless slights that I am forced to endure every evening. I am God damn lucky to pop those Coors Light tops even if their penis cake taste like, well, penis.

Ben Raskin bartends at Keys On Main Wednesday through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin. Check out his podcast, SLC PubCast, on iTunes. His favorite African meat sandwich is made with zebra.