First Tables, Exact Change, and People Running With Knives

This weekend was weird, especially Saturday (which I only worked 'cause Laura asked me to nicely). All the cheap, annoying idiots were out in force. Since a full accounting for the weekend would be a small novel in and of itself, I'm just going to give you highlights.

Friday was slow as soon as I got there, so I sat down at the bar and had an early dinner of fries. A middle aged blond woman walks in and tries to sit one stool over from me at the bar, has a great amount of difficulty with the close spacing of the stools, then picks one up and moves it right in front of the trash at the server station. I move it to the other side, which she sees me do.

She orders a beer from Brandi, looks around, fidgets, goes to a table before the beer's ready. Brandi puts the beer on the bar with a shrug, she's not going out there. Laura and I look at each other and shrug, neither are we. The woman continues to sit at the table, clearly expecting us to bring her beer to her.

After a good five minutes, she comes back to the bar. I continue to eat my fries. Blondie has a cell phone conversation with someone coming to meet her, "I might be eating," I hear. Huh? Oh, blind date. When she hangs up, she leans over to me.
Blondie: Hey.
I look up from my fries.
Blondie: There's a guy coming here to meet me. When he gets here, I want you to turn around and say, 'Hi Gary,' so he thinks you're me.
And I want to never have to deal with annoying girlies like you, but we can't all get what we want. Seriously, what is it with people who think I'm at the bar purely for their entertainment?
Me: Don't think it'd work, since I clearly work here.
Blondie: No, it will. Do it.
*Sigh* I move my fries to the other side of the server station and find an excuse to be in the kitchen for the next ten minutes. When I come back, Gary has found her. Gary has also had a problem with the stools and moved another one to right in front of the trash. Gary and Blondie are now on my black list.

For the rest of the time the love birds remain at the bar, I spy on them. I'm bored, they've attracted my attention, and it gives me a way to make fun of 'em. I gotta take what I can get. Over the course of the date, I get everyone in on it. When they go out to the patio for a smoke, Debbie watches 'em through the kitchen window. Unbeknownst to the daters, they have become the center of attention.

Me: I wish they'd just hurry up and leave. Then they'd stop annoying me and they could go do the nasty. Everybody wins.
Laura: That's what I like about you, always thinking of other people.

Dave: I think it's going very well, they seem comfortable with each other. She's more eager than he is. (pause) A lot more.
Me: Bodes well for him, then.

Debbie: He's got his arm around her.

Brandi: She's gonna get laid.

They eventually leave (but not before Blondie spends half an hour in the bathroom - I don't even want to know what she was freshening up). As they walk out the door, maybe an hour after first arriving, I turn to Laura.
Me: You know, sometimes after we have conversations like this, I get paranoid about ever going out someplace myself, for fear of the conversations being had about me.

Then I finally got my first table, a trio. I walk up, plop down the coasters, give the usual "hi, how're ya doin?"
Guy: What's cheap here?
He then proceeds to quiz me on what's the "most economical" pitcher of beer, appetizer, and what we'll give him for free. He gives me a dollar tip for the pitcher, and I do my best to ignore him thereafter. Life's too short for that nonsense.

Skip to Saturday.
My first table is the two ladies who dropped in and gave me 10% on my last weekend where I hated everybody. I do the bare minimum service-wise, 'cause I'm already not in the best of moods and I'm holding a grudge. Then their friend, gal indecisive, joins them. Shoot me now. I go over. Does she know what she wants? No, of course she doesn't. I hand her the drink menu and give her a few minutes.
Me: Have you decided?
She points to the peach fizz on the menu: How is the sparkling wine you use in that?
Me: It's fine. (Who cares? It's mixed with orange juice and peach schnapps, it's not like you're even tasting the sparkling wine at that point, dumbass)
GI: Um... Well, maybe I'll have some wine instead...
I was expecting this. She never orders the first thing she's thinking about ordering. Never. She goes for the Riesling, like she usually does. Why, when she usually orders the same thing, does it remain so difficult? Then she asks for a food menu, and I run crying to Julia.

Julia: Yeah, well, did you see that couple that just left? (she holds up a five dollar bill) This is a terrible tip. They had dinner and everything. The best part, the woman kept telling me how the Dalai Lama sent her. That's a first for me.

Then, at about eight thirty, I go from having two tables to twelve in the space of about ten minutes. I shift into efficiency mode. I'm in a rush for the next hour straight as I try to catch up and keep up with so many people all at once. In this rush, my two least-favorite tables of the entire night arrive, for this is when I get the exact-change bastards. One table starts out on my bad side as the dude pulls out his wad of cash and counts out six dollars exactly, hands it to me, and puts the wad of cash back in his pocket. The other table doesn't seem so bad right off. On their first round, I get a couple dollars. This was the best tip from them for the next four hours.

As it begins to slow down a bit, the "good" table's ready for another round. When I bring it, everybody except one chick is out for a smoke. I set down the drinks, and then am forced to stand there while she digs through her purse for an eternity.
Her: I'm sure I have fifty cents in here somewhere.
That's right, more exact change.
Next round, different person pays, I get stiffed again. Fifty-cents girl asks me for water, which I somehow forget to bring for her. Next round, different person pays, gives me 10%. I say, screw that, and do my best to ignore them and the other table (a couple more exact change rounds there, as well as a couple "and a dollar for you!" from the other dude).

I decide now's a good time to take out the trash because a little distance between me and the cheap bastards can only make me less likely to kill them. As I'm grabbing a fresh trash bag from behind the bar, one of the regulars is sitting there having a beer.
Him: I hear you're leaving.
Me: Yup. Just a couple more weeks.
Him: Why?
Me: I'm just going to be too busy once the new semester starts.
He nods.
Me: Seems the right time anyhow. People are getting on my nerves.

And then, to finish off an altogether classy weekend, near closing time as I'm taking drinks away from the lingerers, who though different from my two "favorite" tables, also liked to stiff me. They give me sad looks, and I say, "Sorry, gotta pick 'em up," without being sorry at all. So, as I'm starting this, Brandi and K.C. have to step outside to have a conversation with some police officers.

Why? You ask. Because, during a smoke break a short time earlier, they got to see some inebriated dude chasing another drunk down the street brandishing a knife. Ah, good times. So, the police borrowed Brandi and K.C. to try and identify the knife-wielding-psycho. "Was it him?" I ask, when Brandi returns.
Brandi: Nah, it was some other fool.
Which means, the crazy man with sharp implements is still on the loose. Aint that awesome?

By the end of the night, thanks to one surprisingly generous table, my take-home doesn't suck as much as I feared it might, but my overall percentage is still disappointing. Usually, with that much in sales I would have taken home a solid $20 more, if not $30. Cheap bastards. A pox on them. I wish nothing pleasant for their futures, nothing pleasant at all.

Yes indeed, people are getting on my nerves.