As curator and de facto Master of Effin Ceremonies here, I should kick things off. One night some friends and I headed over to an Upper East Side sports bar we like. A girl I work with is from a sad and dismal state known as "Oklahoma" which I'm told is somewhere in the middle of the country, but I can't say for sure. The only thing I know about Oklahoma is that, despite having no people or buildings, they managed to field quite a good college football team from whatever lepers and man-beasts roam their blighted, rotting land. They were playing in the BCS Championship Game on this night against Florida, the place that has stepped up to graciously bury your grandparents. The game was going fine and, as the bar is cool and the game was huge, the place was bumpin'.
Now for future reference, I don't like yuppies. They fuck up everywhere they go and are currently in the process of ROYALLY fucking up New York. And let's be clear: a yuppie wearing a Grizzly Bear t-shirt is still a yuppie. But I digress. Just keep in mind the context of the night: big game, sports bar. Some yuppie dude rolls in with his trophy girlfriend. This guy has a soul patch. A fucking soul patch. Worse than that, he appears totally oblivious to the fact that sporting events even exist, let alone the fact that they are being celebrated vigorously before him; he just wants dinner.
Unsurprisingly, the waitress is SWAMPED. This guy cannot comprehend why, on national championship night at a well-known sports bar, his food is taking so long. So you know what this dink does? HE STARTS YELLING AT THE WAITRESS.
Naturally, the waitress says there isn't much she can do about the food taking a long time, it's a big game night, and she is doing the best she can. She goes to deal with another table while Fluster McEmbarassHisGirl huffs and puffs about service. We all go back to the game, snacking and drinking. A few minutes later, we hear a rustle and look over. The Yuppie has been grabbed by the collar and is being held in the tight Welsh death-grip of the owner.
"Say 'what' again!" the owner yells. "Say 'what' again!"
Yuppie guy, not unexpectedly, wusses out, assuming it is okay to hassle a young female waitress without accepting the vicious grown-man United Kingdom beatdown he has just earned.
"Hey man," he says like a wuss wussing out completely like a baby whining to his mommy while he wusses out. "I didn't do anything."
This didn't fly because, as it turns out, he had been giving the waitress grief all night and when Mr. Owner decided to confront him, he gave further sass-mouth. It is at this point that the owner exclaims, "You don't talk that way to my employees," pulls dude up, and drags/tackles him into the next room in a miasma of gasps and shattered glasses. The cat is dispatched and the owner returns. Where was his woman in all of this? Sitting across from him doing pretty much nothing while he got his business handed to him. Her expression went from mild concern during the confrontation to "Oh no not again" when the owner politely asked her to take her man's lame ass home. Turns out dude had some serious alcohol on his breath and it seems like he had put down quite a few even before rolling in.
It's all fun and games until a Welshman shoves your huge phone deep inside you.
When the owner returned he was greeted with applause and some good news: a few of LI's finest were in the house and said they would vouch for the owner if anything went down. Then, in what can only be described as sweet, delectable justice, the owner proceded to hand out free shots of Jack Daniels to the entire joint. Which we enjoyed responsibly before tipping our waitress.
I am likin' NYC more and more... you just keep talking up the chivalry of the bar owners, the friendly football-watching atmosphere, and, of course, the consumption of one of our southern DOCs... and then, hey!, you might just get a visit from your redneck in-law!!
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