Happy Saturday!
It’s been three weeks since I’ve posted one of these. As I said in my last post, with Christmas and New Years on a Saturday this year, we all have a crap ton of things to do, so I’d pick it up again today.
I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday! We certainly did here. We had dinner at my parents’ house Christmas Eve and then an almost normal Christmas Day back at our house. I say almost normal because one of the kids just couldn’t get here. He works in retail and after two years of highly stressful Christmas shopping seasons and with staff shortages, that meant he worked ten days straight before Christmas Day. The 25th was his only day off until New Year’s Eve. He decided he’d prefer to just stay home and enjoy a stress-free day.
Although, I was less than thrilled with that decision, I really can’t blame him. I’m normally a people person and even I have found lately that I just don’t want to go out. Anywhere. We did a video call just before Christmas dinner was ready. After finishing work Christmas Eve, he did come to Christmas Eve dinner at my parents. Then he went straight home and went to bed, exhausted. He slept straight through until about 2:00 PM. Clearly, he needed the break.
Christmas for me, like probably many of you, has always been a busy time. I was a bartender in my early twenties and the bar I worked in was actually in one of the busiest shopping malls here. And the bar was always packed for the month of December. Whether it was husbands coming for a drink while their wives shopped, people meeting friends while shopping and coming for a Christmas drink, or haggard retail employees trying to slough off grumpy shoppers, we always had our hands full.
The bar opened at 10:00 AM and, while shopping went until 9:00 PM, we didn’t close until midnight. And literally, from about noon until midnight, it was non-stop busy. I remember one night in particular, very busy, and about every third or fourth order from one waitress was two B-52s. For those unfamiliar, that’s a shooter — a layered drink of Kahlua, Baileys, and Grand Marnier. Compared to other shooters, they aren’t too hard to pour. The Bailey naturally sits on top of the Kahlua but the Grand Marnier, unless you go very slow, will mix with the Baileys. Not really what you want to be pouring when it’s crazy busy. But, you do what you have to do.
After about the third set of them, I made a point of watching where the waitress took them. When she set the down on the appropriate table, the two ladies there stirred them up with a straw and then dumped them in their coffee.
“Awesome,” I thought and next order, I didn’t bother layering them. They were just going to stir them up, anyway.
The ladies sent the unlayered shooters back with the waitress. They wanted them layered. I guess that’ll teach me.
I can neither confirm nor deny whether those two unlayered shooters ended up in my coffee shortly there after.
I hope Santa was good to everyone in 2021 and that we’re all happy, healthy and safe in 2022!