Do you really think you need another one? in 2020 - public

Couple of real stand out guys come into the bar - we’re talking maskless, toothless, haven’t changed shirts in weeks - kind of backwoods hillbillies and immediately I know this will get weird.

They sit down, after I give them the speech about how my county has enforced a mask wearing policy, and how we’d like customers to at least attempt to adhere to it, they huff and puff and order Budweisers and shots of Fireball.

Now Toothless (we’ll call him this because he has exactly one front tooth in his mouth and literally nothing else) starts to mumble babble about how they’ve been on an afternoon drinking binge - good way to start a normal story with a responsible bartender, right? (I’m not that) So his friend Rusty (guy is wearing a cut off Rusty Wallace NASCAR shirt that looks like someone had cleaned up a pile of hobo piss with it 25 years ago) chimes in that “we left the ladies out so we could get drunk together.”

In my head I just say to myself - great. This is exactly the type of people I want to wait on.

I take care of other customers and rip a couple shots with a regular because he can see I’m already getting worked up after the guys keep flagging me down by pounding their empty bottles on the bar and screaming “YO BIG GUY WE NEED MORE. OH WAIT YOU’RE BUSY. NO RUSH.”

Normally I’d serve these yahoos a beer and shot or two and tell them to fuck off into the next county but good ol’ Rusty is dropping cash out of his pockets every thirty seconds and well, my bar was shut down for three months not making any money so - if the suckers can’t fucking stay at home during a pandemic you might as well make money for someone - that and I was getting a fifty cent tip on each 10 dollar round so I didn’t really fucking care about them at that point.

My coworker is also fed up with them at this point but the difference for me and her is clear - Toothless is staring down her huge noticeable cleavage. It wouldn’t be that weird for her - she knows she has gigantic boobs and she uses them to make tips that I see too so I cheer her on - but, she’s uncomfortable because this fucking knob is starting to stare and noticeably drool because he’s half drunk and can’t keep reminding his one toothed pinhole to keep swallowing the spit that would be slowed by having any semblance of teeth.

She approached me while I was cooking a burger in the kitchen; “Zac, he’s like seriously creeping me out. What do I do?”

When I go back out, these two buffoons were joined by a third guy I’ve seen before. This idiot is also semi regular and an absolute fucking tool (he rambled one night to a couple of cute younger girls that their purpose in life was to be in the kitchen because that’s a dying concept) We call him Elmer (he says all of his ‘r’ sounds like a ‘w’ so I instantly think Elmer Fudd) and he is feeling left out. Elmer apparently knows these guys and is butthurt they didn’t call him to drink with him. Elmer says “let me catch up to you” and orders a round of Rumpleminze, or as he called it, “Wumple.”

At this point toothless is starting to do a classic action of a drunk person - the head starts to bob up and down - and I ask Elmer, hey, is one of these for him? He doesn’t look like he needs anymore.

Well, as I should have known, being a drunk myself, that Toothless heard these words and somewhere in his booze addled brain he decided this had to be a challenge. “Of course I need more. Just do your fucking job man!”

The bar went silent except for the jukebox playing some fucking hokey country song in the background.

I took a breath.

“Maybe you fellas should go outside and smoke, eh? I’ll come check on you later.” I grimaced through my closed lips.

Rusty saw how mad I was getting and he was together enough to wrangle Toothless and Elmer and head to a table out back behind the bar. Our patio section is behind the building and hidden from the traffic of the county road we are on which is good for the drunks and bad for the staff. I’m courting a couple of friends and really good regulars and we’re laughing and catching up from quarantine and such and I kind of just forget about the dumdums. One couple I’m talking to asks if I’d wait on them outside as they had some family coming in that didn’t still feel completely comfortable eating in an enclosed space surrounded by idiots. I happily obliged and walked them out with menus and told them I’d be back in a minute. As I’m opening the back door to go back inside, I hear the high pitched whine of Elmer.

“Hey, bawtendaw. We want dwwwinks too.”

I spin around. Toothless is flailed back in his chair half asleep and Rusty is searching Toothless’s pockets. I walk up to Elmer while watching this and I say;

“Hey, do you really think either of these guys need another drink?”

“What about shots of Doctowww?” Elmer whines.

Doctor is a menthol mint schnapps that is low proof alcohol and tastes just like swallowing your mouthwash after you already swished it around for thirty seconds. I have to remind myself that there are people in the world that don’t experience the blessings of all things alcohol and might need an explanation that I’m about to feed two drunk assholes mouthwash and one very drunk asshole water (Doctor is clear and water can easily pass when you are putting them in plastic shot glasses for outside drinking) and as I walk them up to the table they’re all holding each others heads up like they’re about ready to enact a drunken chant circle and summon the demons.

Elmer pulls out the nine dollars it costs for the shots - yes, I did charge him for water - no I don’t feel bad at all - sure, he struggled to pull out nine one dollar bills - no, I am not shocked I wasn’t getting a tip and I had debated giving them all water with a droplet of mint schnapps on top.

Elmer rallies the troops and gets them to grab the glasses and “cheewwws” which I’m assuming is ‘cheers’ in English and down the hatch they go.

As I’m taking the food order at my table of regulars I hear a commotion behind me;

“No, don’t do that here. Just hold it in…NO. NO GODDAMN-“

I spin around just in time to see Rusty screaming at Toothless as Toothless starts to puke straight liquid into Elmer’s lap.

I can’t contain my laughter and as I ask them all to leave I think to myself:

That was really worth another one.