When I was fresh out of college, my two best friends and I decided it was in our best interest to move to Jupiter, Florida. This may seem like a random choice, but I assure you that we only made this decision after a LOT of research and serious discussion. (By research, I mean testing out the local bars, and by discussion, I mean drunkenly hugging and promising to be best friends forever).
Before we took the plunge, we went on a weeklong vacation to Jupiter to test the waters, and we stayed with a friend of a friend. To protect the people in this story, I will change their names. We stayed at Dadam's house, and he and his best friend Pizzer took it upon themselves to show us what Jupiter was all about. The first thing you should know is that we ruined their life that week- but I won't get into that. The important take away from this is that they showed us such a great time that we decided to move into Dadam's apartment complex just 2 weeks later. He was thrilled.
In any case, once we made the move, we spent some time finding jobs and getting the lay of the land. After about two weeks, we were pretty much pros. Also, we became a little bit famous in Jupiter- people called us "those crazy girls from Indiana." One of us even earned the title of "the biggest bitch in Jupiter," but I wont single anyone out Kacie. I think this was mainly because we were 21 years old, new in town, and couldn't have cared less about what people thought of us. (Actually, Val & Kacie were 22. It's important that you know that they are older than me and therefore should be wiser and more mature). This attitude turned out to be our biggest downfall.
On the night in question, Dadam and Pizzer took us out to a place called RA Sushi. This was a hip cool sushi place that turned into a bar after 10pm or so. We strutted into RA, marched straight to the bar, and the three of us started shouting out things to the bartender to get his attention and expedite the drinks. He gave us our drinks, we stayed for awhile, life was great. THEN the bill came.
Little known fact (unless you have been a bartender or server before): when you have a crowded bar, you make notes on your tabs to remember who is who. Example- if a cute guy in a red shirt came up and ordered a beer from me, I would enter it into the system and save him as "hottie in red" or "red shirted wonder" or "guy I want to sleep with in red" or something to that effect. All three of us had been servers at some point in our life, so we knew to look at what he nicknamed us. We only checked because we were being narcissistic sorority girls. I think we were probably expecting to be nicknamed "3 hot blondes" or "the 3 most beautiful funny attractive girls I’ve ever met."
This bartender had saved us as "three whores." (It may have been "3 skanks" or "3 sluts"- I can't totally remember). Now, I don't know if you have met myself, Valarie, or Kacie, but sometimes we tend to get a tad dramatic. The first thing I remember is Kacie SCREAMING that she needed to see a manager immediately. Valarie ran over and tattled to Pizzer and Dadam, who did not take this news well. The next few minutes are a blur- I think I was just running around in circles shouting that I would never darken their doorway again and hurling idle threats at anyone who looked my way. Kacie was shouting at a manager, and Valarie was standing next to a bowl of condoms that were kept on the bar. Yes, this classy place kept a bowl of condoms on the bar. I'm not sure if it was her or Dadam that started throwing the condoms at the bartender- all I know is that very soon, condoms were being fired at the bartender and the manager with a laser rocket arm (Valarie was the QB for powder puff in high school, so I tend to blame her, but again, my memory of all of this is fuzzy). Pizzer informed everyone in the room that we would NEVER give our money to this place again, I was telling everyone I could that I was in fact NOT a whore... at this point, the noise level had hit an all time high. The manager surveyed the scene and decided that enough was enough. Sheilding himself from flying condoms with a drink tray, he looked us right in the face and told us that if we ever entered another RA Sushi establishment again, he would have us forcibly removed.
To this day, I get nervous when I go into a RA Sushi. I imagine that in the back room somewhere, there is a photo from their security camera, a snapshot of that chaotic scene with the caption "Three Whores: Blacklisted." If that does exist, I'd actually like a framed copy. I live about a block from the RA Sushi in downtown Chicago, and everytime I go, I make someone else ask for a table and I refuse to look the server in the eye. They haven't kicked me out yet though, and I wish I had been smart enough to call BS on that mean old manager at the time.
I think it's important that I document that first year in Florida, as it was one of the most eventful in my life. Next time, I'll tell you about the time Moley and a friend came to visit me and her friend got so drunk before 10am that she urinated in her pants while waiting for the liquor store to open.
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