Dancing with the Drunks

Just to set the record straight, I did no drinking or dancing myself. I was working. The drunks, however, covered both bases fairly well. I decided to make this post about the two banquets I've served at.

Banquet serving is very fun! The first one I did was a wedding reception. There were two of us girls and one guy. He tended the bar, while Tara and I covered the tables. It was buffet style, so we didn't have to take orders or anything, but it was still busy! We had to set the tables for about 150 guests, run food back and forth from the buffet table, and clear the dishes and trash. It seemed reasonable enough to me, but Tara was rather upset that there were so few of us in ratio to the number of guests. She's been doing every part of the restaurant business for half her life, from waitressing to owning, so I figured she knew what she was talking about. It didn't bother me, though, since I had never worked in another setting. Sometimes, having no point of comparison is great. The only annoying part to me was that I had to wear a tux and felt like a cross-dresser. Oh well. The things we do for money. It was a good evening, all in all. I dropped an empty beer bottle once, which shattered in a million pieces, but that was outside, and the worst thing I did all night. At the end of the night, we helped the caterer and his nephew load their truck with everything, and a whole cart of dishes fell over and exploded in the parking lot. That was really bad. Thankfully, not as much was damaged as it first appeared, so that was good. At midnight, though, that was really not what people wanted to have happen. Then I got lost going home. I finally made it around 1:30. This one can't really be blamed on me, though; Route 32 in Maryland runs North-South AND East-West. How's that for confusing? Well it confused me. But mom got me home.

Banquet #2 was more interesting. It was an outdoor party on the river. Some rich people had a work party the night before, and decided to keep the pavilion another day and throw a party for friends. So they hired us to serve, a band, and got $500 of food from Adam's Ribs. I got to go pick it up, and I don't think I've ever seen so much food packed into a normal little car. Tara and I got to work together again, and this time she tended the bar. Megan and I covered the buffet. Mrs. T. promised us it would be a 'wild party', with guests ranging from twenty-one to her age. She had no idea how many people would show. The band came and set up, we had the food out, tiki torches lit (which was a nightmare; a hard breeze was blowing off the river, which made lighting them very hard. The tip of my thumb is still tender from being burnt.), and the bar stocked. Megan and I were supposed to leave at 10:00, and Tara at 12:00. We were all asked to stay 'til 12:00, which was no problem. At first. Music blared all night, people were talking, laughing, eating, dancing, and drinking like fish. 10:30 was the magic hour; at that point, almost everyone was drunk. I saw a bunch of kids playing some drinking game, two girls and a guy sharing a huge bottle of wine, and people were just getting strange. I'd never been around drunks before, so it was quite the experience. My job at that point was to carry plates of cookies and brownies around and make people eat them. I was asked if they were pot brownies, which they weren't. I saw a girl at a table holding her head with one hand and drunkenly draping her arm around his neck. Later she was passed out on the ground. I saw one guy stand too close to a tiki torch and set his shirt on fire, while a girl slapped it out and almost set her hair on fire. That was actually kind of funny. I saw one guy stagger up to the guest house, aided by his girl friend. The funny cartoons and movies where they weave and zig-zag unbelievably are actually accurate; he couldn't travel in a straight line to save his soul. He stumbled all over the place, while she expertly guided him by tugging his sleeve. He got up on the stone porch and fell. I laughed. He was back in about twenty minutes, able to walk again. I assume he puked his guts out and felt better. He was kind of menacing at that point, so I avoided him. Some guy wandered into the woods and never came out. A happy drunk gave us high-fives for doing a good job, put his arm around Megan and talked to the other people at the bar. He asked if anyone had given us a problem, and to tell him if they did. "You're giving me a problem," I thought to myself. Probably the funniest drunken moment was when Mrs. T. was signing our paper. We were standing at the bar, and Tara was getting this guy a drink. He saw Mrs. T. signing, and said to me, "Is she famous?" "Yep!" I replied. "Wow," he said, "you got her autograph?" I nodded. "Wow. Should I get one?" "Why not?" I asked. "We did." He turned to Megan. "You got her autograph?" He was excited now. "Uhhh...yeah." Megan responded. "She's really famous, isn't she?" he asked again. "No," Megan replied, "she's not famous." He was crestfallen. "Oh, I knew that!" he said. I'm sure. Those last few hours were a mystery to me. I saw no appeal in what they were doing. What's so great about getting so smashed that you set yourself on fire by accident, can't walk straight and fall onto stone porches, or think your friend's mom is famous? What's fun about kneeling before the porcelain god and summoning Rolf? I don't get it. One thing is for sure, though. Rich, high-class folks do NOT make high-class drunks.