Longing for Long Island
I’ve decided that I’m full up on crazy. You know that part in As Good as It Gets? “Sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here?” Yeah, that.
Yesterday, this crazy lady comes into the bar (sounds like a beginning of a joke: a crazy lady, a duck and a priest walk into a bar… har har…) and decides to start some shit with me. She orders a Long Island Iced Tea. I’ve come to learn anyone that orders a Long Island, their first priority is to get just a little bit tipsy in just a little bit of time. Not only am I too much of a lightweight to drink such a drink, I personally think Long Islands taste like shit - what’s with all those different alcohols? Gin, tequila, rum, triple sec, vodka - reminds me of when the Dictator has free rein at the soda fountain and puts Orange Fanta, 7-UP, Root Beer and Dr. Pepper all in the same cup. Ew.
I have been bartending training a lot lately, when we’re not too busy that I’m in the way but busy enough that people are actually ordering drinks to be trained on. I’m getting more comfortable behind the bar so I figured I’d be able to make Crazy Lady’s drink, no problemo.
I make the drink, put the concoction in front of Crazy Lady when she informs me that she’s allergic to lemons so please take the slice off. Um, okay. Has anyone ever ordered a Long Island and have it NOT come with a garnish of lemon?
I spy a lemon!
And if you were allergic to lemons and you ordered a drink you know ordinarily comes with one, wouldn’t you let the bartender know while ordering? And if you neglected to do so would you act as if your hand was broken in 5 different places and instead of reaching up with your fully functional hand and merely taking the damn lemon off yourself, would you ask the bartender to do it for you? Just wondering.
I pluck the lemon off the side of the glass, take Crazy Lady’s money and walk away. One of the girls I work with calls me over and tells me to keep an eye on CL because she’s holding her drink, staring into it while mumbling, “Oh! Fuck YOU! Fuck you, ALRIGHT?” I’m thinking: Fucking day-drinkers. Always walk in alone but have 5-6 of their personalities sitting on the barstools next to them. Wonderful.
I’m doing my best to ignore this bitch when from the end of the bar, she starts waving her arms with her phone in her hand going, “Helloooooooooooooooo.” I walk down there and she shoves her cell in my face… okay, see now - I don’t like anything shoved in my face. Pointed fingers, cell phones, um - other things. Okay, well, maybe that last thing is okay but only if R is doing it and I’m not already asleep.
I strain to focus my eyes to view the screen not 2 inches from my nose while Crazy Lady is yelling, “THIS is how you make a Long Island. Not whatever YOU made.” I read the recipe and it’s to the “Tea” (heh) what I poured. Sidenote: Could anyone explain to me how this bitch as old as the hills and crazy to boot got to be so tech savvy?
I take the drink away from CL and walk over to N, who is training me, to apprise her of the situation. N sticks a straw in the drink and puts the straw to her mouth and says that it tastes exactly how she would make it and she’s not going to waste the alcohol making another one for Crazy Lady. She tells me to go back over there and ask CL is she’d like something else in place of the Long Island.
I sidle up to the bar (I’ve always wanted to say that) and ask CL if there’s some other drink I can make wrong for her when, again, she shoves the phone in my face ranting that I don’t know how to make a Long Island and all she wants is a Long Island and she’s not leaving til she gets a Long Island exactly how it appears on her phone. HMPH!
She’s causing such a commotion and I’m pissed because it just so happens that the owner is there having a drink with her daughter, who just finished her shift. I’m getting really worried about looking bad in front of them, appearing as if I don’t know how to make drinks and I can’t even control the clientele when G, the daughter, walks over. She says to me that Crazy Lady was in earlier spewing her craziness, probably went and got drunk at the bar down the street, got kicked out of there and made her way back to us - so just kick her out and be done with it.
SWEET JUSTICE.
I take six dollars from the cash register, put it on the bar next to CL and tell her that she’s more than welcome to come back another time but that we all think she has had enough to drink for today. How does that old saying go? A closed mouth doesn’t get fed? Well, in this case, a crazy open mouth doesn’t even get to finish its drink.