Bartenders

Let me just preface this with - I am done with bartenders. I got to this point almost as quickly as I was into the idea of bartenders. Actually, I don’t know if I was ever really into the idea of bartenders as much as I was into one particular bartender.

He worked at a small bar across the street from my house. I say “worked” because he no longer works there. In fact, he hated his job while he was there. Anyway, he worked at this bar and was also getting an accounting degree. I know this because one day I tried to convince him the career path that he was (almost finished) pursuing was boring. Yeah, I’m pretty cool and helpful.

Moving on, I liked him (and the bar obviously) because he would make my friends and I fun drinks and charge us almost nothing. If he was in a particularly good mood, or if he had a shitty customer, he’d just add out bill to the customer. Nothing really came of this except one night I attempted to get his number. I failed because the number I got looked like XXX-XXX-XXX, rather than XXX-XXX-XXXX. So yeah, I missed a number.

On the same night, my friends and I left his bar to go to a different, bigger bar. This was actually a quite hilarious night that turned somewhat deadly.

At the new bar, we meet up with my roommates old friend who happens to be dating a significantly older woman. Her age is of interest because my other friends and I bet on how old she was without figuring out how we would actually figure out her age. As a result of my level of drunk (it was high), I decide I can check out her ID in her wallet when she walks away. I know, SUUUPER fucked, but it happens. This age-check had to be done in phases since we were all playing darts and going to and from our bar table. Long story short, she ends up being ten years older, but more importantly, my roommate catches me and gives me his classic look of disapproval. Being somewhat over the events of the night and still drunk, I decide I’m dying of thirst. I walk over to the bar and order a water. This is the beginning of the end.

After I order the water, I proceed to chug it and order about three more. The bartender then tells me that I “seem thirsty”, haha. Then, since I’m still drunk, I decide it would be a good time to tell the ID check story. At some point in that story, my roommate signals that we need to leave (duh, I needed to leave before I got there), and the bartender asks for my number.

Since he’s pretty cute, I do it and then he texts me a couple days later - on a Monday. Next, I meet up with him after he gets off work, so he’s still in his polo with the bar’s logo and khakis - keepin’ it classy. He seems fairly buzzed so I decide to catch up. We both end up pretty drunk and you can guess how this ends. The next morning I drop him off at his house (on my way to work, so drive of shame) and notice that he’s pretty bruuuuuuh.

Fast-forward three months: I have death mono. I miss three weeks of work, lose almost 20lbs and visit urgent care 5 times for IVs, blood tests and to get on various medications. On visit four I learn I have Strep Throat as well. If this doesn’t seem that serious, I basically didn’t move from my couch and watched ALL 10 SEASONS of Ally McBeal in that time.

I can’t be sure that this bartender gave me mono, but since this was the beginning of the slut awakening, I have few doubts.