KiKi's Wild & Wacky Weekend

As you already know, Sundays are my longest shift of the week. It's typically a 15-16 hour workday and it's a tough one. There's a running joke at the club that if weird shit is going to happen, it's going to happen on one of my shifts. One of the DJ's calls it 'KiKi's Wild and Wacky Weekends." It's an appropriate title and yesterday was no exception, the weirdos were out in full force.

The day started bland enough, slow because of all the football games on TV, a normal Sunday afternoon in the winter. It's when the sun starts to set that the strangeness sets in.

It's the end of the month, so I had plenty of Entertainers working, all trying for that last shift to make their rent money for the month. On a typical Sunday during the month, I scramble trying to get girls in to work, as they say Sunday is their family day/church day/football day, whatever. I usually start my day by sending out over 50 text messages to insure that I'll have a lot of girls for the day. I didn't have to worry about that yesterday, so I thought it was going to be smooth sailing.

By the time shift change at 7:00 rolled around, things were running as they should, with no major issues. I closed out my day shift bartender and went back out onto the floor to see how things were going. The crowd was starting to pick up and I was feeling pretty good. I went outside to our smoking patio to get some fresh air and sat at the unattended bar to check my email on my phone. There was a couple sitting at the bar, smoking and mumbling to each other and before I knew it, the guy was grabbing at my hair, trying to smooth down the parts that were deliberately spiked up. Grrrr. I am one of those people, I'm sure you know a few, who do not like to be touched unless I have invited you to do so. I never, ever give out any kind of vibe that strangers would mistake for such an invitation. I have my own little invisible bubble that people who know me, respect. I jerked my head away, pushed his hand away and told him to knock it off.

As I listened to them talk to each other, I realized that there was a dangerous combination going on with them; alcohol mixed with pills. The behavior is unmistakable to my experienced eye. I went back inside and told my bouncer, Jack*, to let them know that they would no longer be served and that they had 30 minutes to call for a ride and leave the property. He said they were cool with that and showed no hostility. Happy drunks are much better than angry ones, for sure.

A few minutes later I was at our front desk checking my Entertainer List, when I saw through the patio door that Mrs. Drunk Druggie was up on the patio bar, on her knees, trying to light her cigarette from the flame of our standing propane heater. Oh hell no. I quickly walked outside and told her to get the fuck off the bar. She either didn't hear me in her concentration or she was simply ignoring me. I walked behind the bar, grabbed her cigarette out of her hand and again told her to get off the bar. She looked at me as if I was an alien from another planet and surprisingly quickly, got the fuck off the bar. At this point I went back inside and told Jack to get them out.

A couple of minutes later Jack informed me that Mr. and Mrs. Drunk Druggie had an open tab at the bar and my bartender Keri* was asking him to let them back in to close out their tab. I said hell no, I was not letting those two back in the building and told Keri to close them out and give their credit card to Jack so he could get their signature outside, where they were waiting for their cab.

This is when things took a turn for the weirder. Not bad weird, but weird nonetheless. Jack came to me and recounted the conversation he had just had with Mr. and Mrs. Drunk Druggie;

Jack: Sir, I need you to sign your credit card slip for the tab you were running at the bar.

Mr. Drunk Druggie: Ok. Is she a good bartender?

Jack: Keri is the best bartender around, Sir.

Mr. Drunk Druggie: What's a good tip for the best bartender around?

Jack: Well Sir, 15% is a respectable tip but 20-30% would be a good tip.

Mr. Drunk Druggie to Mrs. Drunk Druggie: What about $600, honey?

Mrs. Drunk Druggie in response: No way, baby. I like $818 much better. I like 8's and 1's.

Mr. Drunk Druggie: Ok. What's $63 plus $818?

Jack: That would be $881, Sir.

So, Mr. Drunk Druggie writes in an $818 tip on a $63 tab and signs his name just as their cab pulls up.

Jack: Thank you, Sir, you two have a great night.

Mrs. Drunk Druggie: Word.

And off they went. By the time Jack finished telling me the story, word had already gotten to Keri, behind the bar and when I walked up to her she was positively shaking. "Are you fucking kidding me?", she asked. "Nope. He tipped you eight hundred and eighteen fucking dollars, baby.", I replied. "Don't get too excited yet, kiddo, we don't know if it's even going to go through." I told her.

So off we went, to the end of the bar, to where the credit card machine is, to see if this amazing tip was actually going to happen. Keri could hardly punch in all the numbers, she was shaking so badly. See, Keri just had a baby boy 2 months ago and a tip this big would really come in handy for her. Jack was also waiting anxiously, as he knew that if it actually went through, that Keri would tip him out very, very well. "Beep, beep", pause, "Beep"......."Transaction Complete." Yessssss......it went through and Keri was jumping up and down in pure joy. I was so happy for her, she really, really needed this, not only financially but her self-esteem has taken a huge hit because of her difficulty in losing her "baby weight." Not only that, but the father of her baby turned out not to be the man she thought he was. So when I say she needed this, she really did, on so many levels.

Right around this time, the club started filling up. My waitresses were selling high-dollar bottles of champagne like crazy and my girls were raking in the dough. Jack caught two couples in the Ladies Room about to get down and dirty, a creepy old man kept grabbing at me every time I walked past his stool at the bar, one of my waitresses had to leave to take her sick daughter to the ER and my DJ put his angry wife on the phone with me so I could explain the innocence of the bite mark one of my Entertainers had left on his neck. To say it was hectic is putting it mildly.

CeCe came in, not only to waitress for me but to help get me leveled again. We're a damn good team, she and I and I love her like a sister.

Keri ended up making over $1200 last night and she deserved every dollar. Like I said in a previous post, she's my favorite.

Just another Wild & Wacky Sunday at The Strip Club.

When I finally got home, close to 4:00 am, I soaked in the tub for about an hour, as my body was screaming in pain from all the running around I did. I've been resting most of today because I've got to turn around and do it all again tomorrow.

As I get ready to click "publish post", I see on my clock that 2008 will be here in a mere 8 minutes. Happy New Year, Little Pet Blog.....here's lookin' at you, kid.