The forty-something, Hungarian dishwasher is vomiting vodka into the bushes as I pick my friend up off the floor; his wife screaming at me from the car. Tony at the end of the bar has been creeping out girls all night over a glass Pinot trying my ever-waning patience. The bar back, feeling sluggish is suffering from a head cold while the DJ keeps playing, drunk and unaware it’s ten minutes to close and all I want is a fucking drink. Without consulting my calendar I can tell it must be Thursday.

As a bartender your tolerance for the anomalies of human behavior increases; the things that most “normal” people would not put up with from others becomes commonplace. Alcohol changes people in a most profound way and with enough of it no amount of sober wisdom imparted can save them from their impaired judgments. Its difficult to tell the married man making out with the girl at the end of the bar that his wife might frown upon it when some asshole is setting fire to a credit card receipt at table 115.

The nicest people can descend into a slobbering, goat-punching mess in the span of a few drinks and I have to remind myself that I did this. I made them this way. At any point I could have cut them off and cut my losses but something happens. Your value system tends to become flexible when money becomes involved. The amount of bullshit you will deal with is in direct correlation to the level of tippage coming from the offending party.

I have allowed someone to holler obnoxiously while pulling his shirt off solely for the sake of my phone bill. Or given a round of shots to a group of young girls, that maybe I shouldn’t have only because the one with the credit card has a crush on me. Now please don’t think me irresponsible or my actions unfair. I have had the privilege of throwing a twenty dollar bill back in the face of a douchebag simply for living up to his name. I have tossed people out whose idea of a good time is forgoing social niceties and a decent tip for a shattered pint glass and a game of grab ass.

Unlike the good people who come to relax, have a drink and enjoy good company most of these people are monsters. When Spider-man and Santa Clause are going shot for shot having a loud and heated discourse about the Huskie/Cougs game, trying to involve me in a sport I could care less about with quarter tips, Herman Munster and Rocky the Squirrel exchange quips over martinis inviting me to a Belltown penthouse party while telling me to keep the change of a Hundred. I am just glad the party is on a Saturday and I have an excuse.

The bottom line is this job can be overwhelming, hectic and tiresome as well as a lot of fun. But not every drunk is created equal and therefore not treated that way. When it is outpatient night and you work next to the asylum it’s the best you can do to keep it together. Albeit not the most noble of out looks I have been know to give up a little respect for the good ole American Buck.

(Editor's note: Notes From the Bar Room Floor will be a weekly feature here on the new Ballard News-Tribune Web site including articles, poems and general musings about the ever growing nightlife and bar scene in this sodden little berg we call Ballard.)

Charles J. Thompson currently works as a bartender in Ballard and if not at work is probably getting into his cups somewhere in the neighborhood.