Nightclubs and the Sneakiness

Nightclubs are a bizarre place when you break it down. I imagine it is supposed to bring people to some sort of euphoric state; low lighting, flashing strobe bulbs, mind-altering drinks and narcotics. In terms of behaviour, however, nightclubs are places where people do things they’d generally never do, say things they otherwise would not say, and behave in ways they’d never behave. This euphoric state stinks of fakeness.

After all, when was the last time you saw a man slap a girl’s ass in a grocery store? Or two girls spontaneously break out into heavy-handed grinding in your neighborhood retail outlet? These things would seem incredibly pervasive in our day-to-day lives, but in nightclubs, not only are such occurrences not out of the ordinary, they are commonplace and downright acceptable.

Some of the campy behaviour demonstrated by patrons - both sober and intoxicated - has refused to escape my mind. Some of it 'sneaky'...

1. Girls squeezing their boobs and leaning across the bar. This is actually known as the 'squeeze-and-lean.' Many girls do it, some get away with it.

2. Putting your change into one pocket, then reaching into the other to sample some of the nickels, pennies and dimes, which briskly wind up in my tip jar.

3. Asking for a tall pop to be filled only two-thirds. I know you are going to run to the bathroom and pour in half the mickey you snuck into the club.

4. Stealing coins off the bar.

And some of it, not quite so sneaky...

1. Smiling magnanimously towards me while you ply the sloshed girl beside you with another drink. It takes no game to pick up a girl who is slobbering.

2. The middle-aged man, wearing a leather jacket a size too small with a curly rat-tail, who fell asleep standing at a urinal, member in hand and all. He was found as the bar was being locked up, and would have spent the night had a bouncer not done a last minute bathroom check.

3. Most recently, the spitter. About twenty years old, she had curly red hair, freckles. When she gaped her mouth it was possible to see rows of elastics, and when she spoke loudly, as she always did, it sounded cartoonish. Her thick lisp was compounded by the obstruction of her braces. She could say ‘vodka and coke’ and I could hear the saliva bubbling in the back of her mouth, spit like fireworks arcing from the corners of her mouth. Seeing that she was faced, we made the decision to cut her off. Under the impression that we had stopped serving, she stormed off, her two dollars in hand. Ten minutes later she came back and saw us serving other customers. She stood on her tippy-toes, face flushed with indignation, palms propped on the bar and leaned over the bar so that her braces glinted under the bar lamps, and bawled: “YOU STHAID YOU WERE CLOSTHED TWENTY MINUTESTH AGO!” This is not, as you can imagine, the way to get a drink.