Life Behind Bars Read Free

taking the piss
and making a fool of me.”
    “Don’t you worry,”   says
I,  “he’ll not be behind my bar again.”
     
    Yes you’ve guessed, he was
looking in the mirror!

Taking care of business . . .
     
    Serving alcohol comes with its
own problems, the main one being, people get drunk.  Having relieved them
of their wits and their money, any good publican will look after their own
drunks.  We never, ever look after anyone else’s.  This rule should
be tattooed on every member of staff’s forehead. 
    Picture the scene; an extremely busy
Friday night, the bar absolutely heaving and the staff were working at full
speed.  One stunning but ditzy barmaid, Claire, was gesturing to me she
had to have a break.  This meant I had to leave my stance as bouncer at
the front door and take over in the bar.
    As you have sussed by now, no one
gets past me!  I had spent the last fifteen minutes persuading a
well-known drunk that coming in for a nightcap was not a good idea.  He
had eventually moved on and was gingerly feeling his way home but was definitely
out of our radar.   Feeling it was quite safe to leave Claire to her
cigarette I took her place behind the bar.
    Imagine my horror when I spotted
the idiot of a girl carefully negotiating her way back into the main body of
the kirk with the bloody man on her arm.
    “He’s not feeling well,” she
mouthed to me.
    “NOT FEELING WELL!   You’ll not be feeling well when I get out from behind this bar!”
    Intent on ministering to him and
taking care of his needs, because the poor man had to be ill, after all he could
hardly stand.  Hardly stand!  Hardly walk; he was fucking
legless!  And we were lumbered with him.  But not for long, in the
flick of a barman’s apron he was up and ‘going for gold’ in the only way a true
drunk can. 
    ‘Head down and charge at the
gate,’ only it was our fruit machine that got it.   Everyone’s a
winner?  He was knocked clean out and the punters thought it was raining
pennies from heaven, only it was pound coins.
     
    MY BLOODY POUND COINS
     
    Guess who didn’t get paid that week?

Chucking out time . . .
     
    During my career I have
frequently operated two or three outlets at the same time.  On one
particularly busy Bank holiday I found myself, yet again, over-extended and
short-staffed, hey ho! What’s new?
    On this occasion I had two major
outlets.  Both busy as hell and both needing my full attention (which is
about that of a gnat!)  And both short-staffed on an extremely busy
Saturday.
    I knew I could rely on a couple
of the commis chefs to get me through the lunch period.  On the promise of
double-time and a day off sometime, I managed to cover the Country Inn.
    Tweedys was the most popular
venue in town and I would manage here on my own.  The queue began to form
at about11.30am and by noon the place was heaving.  I have to say,
personally I wouldn’t queue if Gordon Ramsay himself was frying the chips.
    Anyway, usual Saturday, 250-300
lunches, and I have to say at the end of the shift, (actually any shift,) I
looked like someone had thrown the entire contents of the kitchen at me. 
I’m one messy cook.  I had no time to change; jumped in the car, off to
prep for the evening shift at the Country Inn, to feed another 250 starving
punters.
    How I managed to get through that
day God alone knows.  But at the end of a gruelling twelve hours I was
absolutely done in.  So back in the car, leaving my husband and manager in
charge!  Huh!
    If I was a mess at 2pm, you can’t imagine what I looked like at 9pm, absolutely appalling.  First stop
shower, second, a very large vodka and tonic. 
    As I was turning the key in the
lock I could hear the phone ringing. 
     
    “Bugger off!  I don’t care
who it is, I’ll get them later.”
    Got to the top of the stairs and
a voice from below shouts.
    “Phone David NOW!  There’s a
problem down the road.” For heaven’s sake, I’d only left them ten