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It’s All About Etiquette

March 17, 2009 3:10 am Richard Uncategorized

Off and on for the past six or seven years my home-base watering hole has been 3 Jacks Tavern in my home town of Denver. It calls itself a sports bar, but is a damnsight more than just that. With its array of weird, quirky and, ultimately, chummy regulars, 3 Jacks is nothing more or less than a terrific neighborhood bar, a destination for thirsty folks residing in my southern slice of town. It’s owned by Brooke Lohman, a singular barkeep if there ever was one. She keeps the liquor flowing and seems to have a first-name rapport with every customer who strolls through the door. This little missive is dedicated to Brooke because she was, whether she knows it or not, its inspiration. Thanks, Little Sister. You rock like Amadeus.

OK. So I’ve been interested for a lengthy while now in a phenomenon at work in my town’s tavern culture. Over the years, I’ve come to rely on a smallish set of “rules” governing traditional, acceptable, bar behavior, and have attempted to conduct myself accordingly, as often as possible. The “rules” are several, but the one fouling my craw at the moment has to do with the notion of saving one’s seat.

Picture a bar. It is, let’s say, standing room only. The staff is waist-deep in the weeds. And you are sitting solo at the oak, or perhaps with a crony or two at a table, partaking of a tasty tipple, and generally getting jiggy wid it. At some point over the course of the evening, for one reason or another, you are going to vacate your perch—to feed the juke; play pinball; head outside to burn a gasser; enjoy a restorative piddle; whatever.

Now, according to my understanding (arrived at by way of both upbringing and habit), I am allowed to save my place at the table or bar via the simple expedient of placing a napkin or coaster atop my libation. This is, as far as I am concerned, a universal indication, to all and sundry, that I intend to return to my seat, albeit after some indeterminate (though acceptably shortish) few ticks of the ol’ Timex. Yes?

Am I mistaken? Or have I been operating under some sad delusion all this time? I think not, but the fact remains that the napkin/coaster place-saving device has recently failed to act as advertised, somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% of the time. And, as you will soon see, some of those failures are nothing but spectacular.

To whit: a week or ten days ago I was at large in one of my usual hangouts, seated at the bar, hunkering over book and note pad. The joint was, let us say, somewhat jumpin. Not exactly cheek-by-jowl, but also far from desolate. They were having a special on PBR tallboys and I was doing my best to run them shy of as many cans as I could. People continued drifting into the place (mostly for the immanent hold-em tourney), while I drifted the other direction, to enjoy a smoke on the patio.

Now, my space at the bar contained, in addition to a ¾-full can of beer, a note pad, a thick biography on the life of William Shakespeare, a hi-liter, and two pens, and still I paused to plop a coaster atop my PBR prior to vacating my stool.

I was gone for perhaps 5 minutes. Upon my return I discovered that my beer, note pad, thick biography on the life of Shakespeare, hi-liter and two pens, had been shoved 2 positions down the bar, apparently to make room for a brace of Avalanche fans, who seemed to take no immediate notice of my situational rights. And what was most annoying was that there was ample room for them (and their hockey sweaters and backwards-facing ball caps) at the bar without my needing to relocate even a millimeter.

I nodded at the Avs dudes. The one nearest said: “Sorry we moved your shit. But we really like to watch from these chairs.” He indicated his current position. In too good a mood to make a beef, I allowed that it was no biggie and stuffed my nose back inside the whys and wherefores of the Bard of Stratford, and all was bumps-a-daisy for a time.

Then, sometime later, the several cans of PBR sloshing about my interior announced that they required venting and, following the same procedure as before, I ambled off for a free-wheeling few minutes of micturation.

Now. Surely you can see where this is going? Yes, of course you can.

I returned from the men’s’ feeling altogether lighter and with a definite spring in my step, whereupon I found the Avs dudes throatily extolling their team to “play some fucking defense,” and next to them, where I had so previously been ensconced, a pair of small people (not midgets, just small) on the precipice of tucking into a pair of unappetizing red cocktails. Additionally, my stuff had been shoved a further couple of spaces along the oak.

Turning my way, the female member of the Lollipop Guild offered me a prolonged gander at her frighteningly white dentition, and apologized for “stealing” my seat. Again, and I mention this with less rancor than you might imagine, there were at least 3 unoccupied stool tandems those interlopers might’ve called home, without deporting a single occupant. True to my basic nature—and I am, let me assure you, positively awash in the milk of human kindness—I let their rudeness slide.

I mean, shit. I’m a tree, right? I can bend.

Time passed. I became aware of a growing lust for another coffin-nail. By now, the establishment was growing quite full, so I knew, based upon what the evening had revealed thus far, that I was running a risk by leaving my spot. But, one should never allow vague apprehensions to come between himself and an invigorating measure of nicotine, so, after coastering my new PBR, I aimed my feet toward the veranda.

Only to return some few minutes later to find EVERY stool occupied, and my stuff squatting precariously at the end of the bar, sort of wedged under the video-trivia machine. My coaster had vanished, too, which was just odd.

The thief could’ve been any 1 out of 6 or 7 newcomers, but I chose to close my speculations there. Instead, I merely grabbed my belongings and hoofed it to a nearby table, where after polishing off my beer, I packed up, settled my bill, and made like a homing-lush for a different bar.

That bar happened to be the aforementioned 3 Jacks Tavern.

Once through the doors, I deposited my ass on a stool and my research materials on the bar. I ordered a pint of Newcastle and a shot of chilled Beam. When they arrived, I spent a few companionable minutes chatting with the bartender about this and that, and with my neighbors on the current disposition of the Nuggets. Then, feeling restive, I realized the previous horse trough of PBR I’d put away now necessitated a trip to the head. So: coaster on pint, I bee-lined it for the WC.

And, yep (you guessed it, or certainly should have), I returned to find myself yet again dispossessed of a stool. Then again, I thought, searching for a philosophical perspective, how could it possibly have been otherwise?

And then something unexpected happened. My friend Brooke, whom I mentioned at the outset of this mild rant, arrived on the scene and asked if “those guys” had purloined my stool. After I nodded in the affirmative, Brooke approached the miscreants and enlightened them as to their rudeness. She explained the sitch, as only she can, with excessive niceness and professionalism. Her demeanor indicated that she was acquainted with them, which is probably why they immediately offered me an apology, vacated their stools, and bought me a shot of top-shelf whiskey.

And thus do we arrive at the moral of our story. It’s the little things that separate a bar from a fucking great bar. Etiquette, friends. Accept no substitute.

Cheers.

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