Life Behind Bars Read Free Page B

the
night.  There are hundreds of tales of customers being locked in
pubs.  So we all have a check-out system.  Mine took the same route
every night and the gent’s cubicle was the scene of many macabre incidents. 
One in particular rises above all others.
    It was the usual Saturday night,
place jumping, and I finally got everyone out.  It never fails to amaze
me, that having worked a ten hour shift and listened to the crap that drunks
think you’ll find phenomenally interesting, they still expect you to be full of
bonhomie at one o’clock in the morning and find it quite impertinent that you
want them to drink up and leave.  Bloody cheek!  The law has nothing
to do with this, it’s personal!
    Desperate for my bed, I carried
out my last inspection.  As I progressed through the bar I switched off
lights but could still see clearly under the emergency system, except in the
gents.  To check in there involved a complicated contortion, standing on
one leg, (honestly,) while precariously stretching the other out as far as I
could.
    Why?  Well the passage
between the two doors leading into the gents had no emergency light and was
therefore pitch black.  Last thing; check cubicle.  This particular
night when I kicked the cubicle door it bounced back.  It shouldn’t
have.  On closer inspection there was a body. 
    Oh! Fuck, a dead one!
Panic!  Fear!  Then a snore, thank God!
    Problem was he was absolutely
jammed solid between the toilet and the wall; he was a big boy.   He
had to be if I was able to tell from that angle!  Jokes aside, I had to
get him up and out.  I pushed and pulled and smacked and thumped, to no
avail.  The only thing was to get help. 
    Now the majority of my customers
were brilliant but to invite them back into the bar was asking for trouble. 
I’d never get the buggers out, but I had no choice.  Charlie boy was well
and truly stuck.
    The fates were on my side. 
When I gingerly opened the door, there, in full snog, was Davie the
plumber.  Honestly, there he was, with about ten of his mates.  I
shouldn’t have been surprised, he’d be in all night and drunk at least twenty
pints.  Wonder if he needed the loo?  How was I going to capture him
without the rest of them piling in thinking it was Christmas?
    Just at that moment, their
minibus arrived and to my absolute delight, Davie had succumbed to the charms
of the snogger, waved off his pals and went back in for round two.  Thank
you Lord!  I’ll be a better person from now on.  I immediately
captured Davie, handed him a screwdriver—okay, so a plumber doesn’t usually use
one—and showed him my problem.
    The screwdriver was needed after
all.  We had to unscrew the toilet, move it to the side, haul the inert
lump out, and then screw it back down.  Eventually we got the stupid
bugger on his feet and got him mobile, grumbling all the while he had a pint
somewhere.
    “Fuck off!”
    Now I just had to get rid of the
plumber and the snogger.  On the promise of a free lunch, they made their
way blissfully home and I crawled into bed an hour later than intended.
     
    Gives a new meaning to ‘a lock
in.’

Jump for joy . . .
     
    Forget bar skittles and dominoes,
any good bar has its own signature game which can only be enjoyed after hours
and when absolutely pissed. 
    Why?  Because that’s the
rules!
    Our particular game evolved one
Sunday night when the staff and a few chosen customers were enjoying an extra
drink after hours.  During one of those extremely intelligent
conversations, which only occur after copious amounts of booze!  And you
never understand why no one has ever thought of it before.  Genius
Rules!
    Squinting with one eye so he
could focus, Jason issued the challenge; who could clear the length of the bar
in the fewest jumps?  Just like the hop, skip and jump in the Olympics.
    Now I have to say, very few of us
were built for jumping and I wasn’t sure the bar would stand it.  But they
were all game and