The angry ballerina

I showed up a little early to work at the bar last night. When I go tthere, it occurred to me that most of the people coming to the bar would be in their halloween costumes. I had a enough time to run back home and break out the inflatable fat ballerina costume I had from last year. There were several concerns I had with wearing the costume:

1. Having a huge ballerina with a goatee taking money at the door might hurt business rather than help it.

2. Sitting is a real problem in that costume, so I faced the prospect of spending all night standing.

3. No pockets. All the door money would have to be in my hand the whole time.

4. I pretty much lose all street cred as a bouncer when I'm dressed like that.

5. It was daylight savings last night, so I had to work for an extra hour.

Well, it turns out it helped business. People came to play with the ballerina's tits and stayed for the band. Although, this is one of those moments that I wish I wasn't such a nice guy because I soooo could've asked so many of the women that were feeling me up to let me return the favor...a tit-for-tat, if you will.

It wasn't so bad having to stand for most of the night. Once Larkin started playing, I actually started a little Irish jig in the costume that made everybody laugh, including the guys in the band. I kept a close eye on the money the whole night. Being able to stick my arms inside the costume allowed access to my jeans pockets.

When it came to doing my job, I didn't let the fact that I looked rediculous get in the way of doing my job. I yelled at a couple bums for begging from our customers, I had a couple assholes come close to crossing the line, but I kept order. About the worst interaction I had all night came around midnight.

This one girl came to the door. I asked for her ID, and she fiddled around for a couple minutes and gave me her license. She was nineteen...not even bothering to hide it. I told her she couldn't come in, which prompted a pouty "Why not?"

I replied, "Gee, I dunno, maybe it has something to do with this sign next to me saying "No one under the age of 21 allowed on the premises.""

"Well, you let me in last time I came down here!"

"Not on my watch, you didn't. Unless you used a fake ID last time."

"I'm pretty sure I did."

There were so many stupefying levels to that statement that I couldn't find the words to point out just how much of a moron she was. She then went into this whole diatribe of how she was meeting her boyfriend who was already inside, and that she would NOT be drinking, and how she doesn't understand why I was being such a hardass about not letting her in.

I asked her, "Does this boyfriend of yours have a phone with him?"

"Yeah, but I don't have my phone with me. Can't I just go in for five minutes and let him know what's happening?"

At this point, there were ten people behind her waiting to come in. I know I shouldn't have done it, but I caved. I told her, "Look, I'll give you two minutes. After that, I will come in there looking for you."

"Great, thanks!"

After that, I got swamped at the door and didn't get a chance to go after her after the agreed upon two minutes were up. As soon as I got someone to cover for me at the door, which was about twenty minutes later, I found her sitting in the back room, chatting it up with her friends. As soon as she saw me, she pretended not to notice me.

I got right in her face and said, "Let's go...NOW!"

At this point, her boyfriend came and went right into ass-covering mode. "Hey, man. Everything's cool. Look, she's not even drinking."

I put on my mean face. "Doesn't matter. She's not supposed to even be in here. I did her a favor to let her come in here and tell you she wasn't staying, and now, she's leaving. This is not negotiable. Let's go."

The boyfriend tried to keep this argument going all the way out the front door. Once I got them outside, I heard the girl say as she was walking away, "I'm never coming back to this place."

I yelled at her as she was walking way, "Not until you're 21, you're not!"

So, that settles it. No more favors at the door, ever. No more Mr. Nice Guy.


I gotta say, the costume was a bigger hit than it was last year. Toards the end of the night, a friend came up to me and leaned against my costume and told me that she was tired. I told her that it probably didn't help that my costume was essentially a giant pillow. She rested her head for a moment on my inflted shoulder and rested her eyes. At that moment, I got to thinking about my job as a bouncer, and how you wouldn't see this in the deleted scenes from the movie Road House.