Taste

Dear Bartender: There’s a guy I know, doesn’t say much, always orders his martinis exactly the same way: Stoli, stirred not shaken, very dry, straight up, one olive. I’ve heard him order this a million times and there’s never a single variation — until today. He ordered it with Ketel One. I watched carefully for some sign to tell me what had changed until my curiosity overcame me — and I asked.

His answer was that he’d stopped smoking. What the fuck does that mean?

– Now Mad

Dear Now Mad: It means he finally discovered what Stoli actually tastes like.

For the Win

Dear Bartender: Who will stay pregnant longer, your wife or your elephant?

– Guess Who?

Dear Guess: I not only can guess who you are, I can guess the answer: Who told you about my elephant??!

Easier Done Than Said?

Dear Bartender: This is difficult for me, but here goes: How do I ask the bartender for a blowjob?

–Blusher

Dear Blusher: The same way you ask for a Slow Comfortable Screw Against The Wall: by speaking clearly and loud enough for him to hear you over the music.

Am I, uh, missing something here?

Sadie Hawkins

Dear Bartender: Here’s a role-reversal for ya! A bartender asks a customer out — and the customer turns her down. Can the customer ever return?

– Wonderin’

Deer Wonderin’: The customer has every right to return. I wish I could promise that the bartender would be cool about it, but who knows?

I’ve never asked a customer out. But surely this bartenderess has been asked out enough that she knows how gracefully to be rejected??

My suggestion: If she dares gives you a hard time, just order something sour.

Better Then Sex (sic)

Dear Bartender: I have a good friend who, in his forties, became a very successful actor in pornographic films. And why not, I say. You do sorta lose control over your image when you become a porn star, however, and his naked pic has shown up everywhere — in magazines, in books, online, on dirty greeting cards… and that brings me to my problem. See, he’s also a writer — and a grammar whore. I saw a greeting card today with his pic and a dirty message — and an egregious grammatical error. Horrors! He’d be mortified if he saw it. Should I tell him?

Dear Friend: You’re dying to tell him, of course. Who am I to take that away from you? You won’t be doing him a favor, however, since there’s nothing he can do about it now. But since your real goal is to get his attention, why not just buy the card and ask him to autograph it?

Bang a Gong

Dear Bartender: I’m totally with you on the idea that a menu has no place in a private home. I had a small cocktail party last night. I poured nothing but margartias made with Patron, Grand Marnier and fresh squeezed lime. No one complained!

My problem was two guests who disappeared; turns out they were together, in the bathroom, getting it on. I’m not sure if I have an obligation to each of their spouses, to make sure these kinds of things don’t happen. Or maybe it doesn’t matter since neither’s spouse was there?

Dear Host: You have an obligation, once all that expensive tequila has worked its way through their systems, to give your guests a place to pee. Do you have more than one bathroom? You don’t want them whizzing off the balcony.

Your obligation was either to break it up or put a discreet bucket in a private corner of the room.

Silver In The Mine

Dear Bartender: I’m missing little in my life — I’m happily married, good job, a few friends, money in the bank — but I am missing a catchphrase. I hope you instinctively understand what I’m looking for: nothing cute or obviously ripped from pop culture, but a simple phrase I can pull out when normal language won’t do. Something used equally to mean “Ain’t life weird?” and “I’m a dangerous SOB and you’d best not underestimate my ability to out-crazy you.” A meaningless phrase with just enough convincing-sounding parts to make people run for their search engines. Think along the lines of Ben Franklin’s “If your head is wax, don’t walk in the sun” or Julius Caesar’s more concise “Veni, vidi, vici.” I’d just like to score a little jiffy now and then.

Thoughts?

– Mr. Universe

Dear Mr. Universe: My mother recently sent me an email riddled with typos. In it she inadvertently coined a phrase that may suit your purposes entirely: “Use your head, Wilton Rogers!” I’ve been using it and I’ve scored more than just a little jiffy.

The Smoker You Drink…

Dear Bartender: The other day my doctor asked me how much I drink. I didn’t want to get a lecture on the fact that I drink too much, so I answered, “Well, I admit it’s a lot more now that I’ve stopped smoking.” It worked: he was so relieved I’d quit smoking he didn’t mention alcohol again.

My question: Wasn’t I clever?

– Patience

Dear Patience: Yes, very clever. Especially if you never smoked in the first place — or never stopped. Isn’t it great to pay people to listen to our rationalizations?

Makes me wonder what else you’ll tell your bartender that you won’t tell your doctor.

Busman’s Holiday

Dear Bartender: I’m a bartender too, and some of my friends will visit me while I am bartending. This is not a problem. The problem is, when they see my liquor cabinet at home, they ask for the same drinks they order at the bar. While I am all for sharing my own alcohol, I really don’t feel like mixing pomegranate cosmos (or what have you) when at home. I have tried to teach them how to make their own drinks (to which I get, “but you make them better!”) to offering drinks that aren’t as awful to make (ie. Bay Breezes, Codders), but nothing works. I am tempted to stick out a tip jar. Do you have this problem?

–Jia

Dear Jia: No, I don’t have this problem because I never offer my guests a choice. I make a pitcher of something and pour it. If they don’t want what I’ve got, they get a beer. I’ll remain sensitive to allergies but outside of something life-threatening they get when I’ve got. First-time guests are a little surprised but the old-timers know they won’t go home disappointed — or all that sober.

A menu has no place in a person’s home.

Update Your Profile

Dear Bartender: So what do you do when you’re exiting the street door of your apartment building and someone’s there waiting to be let in? It’s physically difficult to prevent them from entering the building — even though you may have no reason to think they have a legitimate reason to be inside. I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t want to give creepy people unreasonable access to my building, either.

My question (really) is: OK so I’ll let the sweet-looking white woman in, but what about that weirdo possibly-homeless bearded black guy?

Dear Freak: Holy shit you’re in for a surprise. Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for racial profiling if we’re talking about who gets to board a London-to-New York flight that I’m gonna be on, but… get a grip! Those sweet-looking white women will have you by the balls in a sexual-harrassment suit in no time.

Fork in Mindy

Dear Bartender: I just read all your posts and I have lots of questions of my own. I’ll start with the simplest: How come people I don’t like are allowed to be happy?

– Mindy W.

Dear Mindy: That’s the simplest? Damn, makes me wonder what the other questions are gonna be like. This isn’t gonna be easy to answer.

Oh wait, yes it is. I just remembered what my mother said when I asked why an omniscient God didn’t just toss all the bad people in Hell before they had a chance to make the rest of us miserable.

My mom’s answer was right on the money: Life sucks, kid.

Sex Surprise, Pt II

Dear Bartender: I work for FedEx, as a courier. I have indeed been “sex surprised,” probably more often than you think — and not just by women, or even only one person at a time. (Most extreme: Two aunts, a niece and a neighbor whose sex I could not determine.) I appreciate the vividness of the term “sex surprise” but it’s not all that apt if the surprises aren’t sexy — or they happen so often that they’re not too surprising.

One of these days I’m going to start sex-surprising the customers!

Dear FedEx Guy: You probably can tell me: When did FedEx drop its secret practice of hiring only beefcake for courier jobs? And, uh, when were you hired? Any prurient relationship between the two questions is completely accidental. I may, however, need some packing materials delivered, depending on your answer.

Just Do It

Dear Bartender: I’m a 25 year-old female virgin. It wasn’t a choice or anything, it’s just how things turned out. (I guess you’d call me an “everything but” girl.) The last guy I dated and told was really odd about it. We had a really physical relationship, but he wouldn’t take me all the way. Now I’m going out with a guy who I haven’t told, but he can’t seem to make a move. Any suggestions on how to handle this situation now and in the future? I’d like to have had sex by 26. This is getting ridiculous.

– Frustrated

Dear Frustrated: Listerine, maybe? It’s hard to say. You told one guy and he wouldn’t do it; you didn’t tell the next guy and he wouldn’t do it either. So maybe telling/not telling has little or nothing to do with it.

Then again, Guy #1 may have thought you were “saving yourself” for your one true man — and didn’t want you to think it was him. Or he may have been terrified of not living up to your expectations for the big act; the first time can be disappointing, you know. You kinda gotta get good at it.

Which, of course, brings us back to your point: You want to get on with the practice, practice, practice.

Guy #2 might be a good candidate; why won’t he take you there? Maybe you haven’t asked him. Maybe he’s a virgin, too. Maybe all this thinking about it is putting him to sleep.

Try this: Get him all naked, hot and bothered, then look him deeply in the eyes and demand passionately — as if you were suddenly overcome — that he take you then and there.

If he still doesn’t get it, then you are saving yourself — not for your one true man, but for someone with a clue.

Screw You

Dear Bartender: At the restaurant I ate at tonight, the women at the table next to me ordered a bottle of wine. When it came, the waiter gave the hostess a splash in her glass to taste, to make sure it hadn’t gone bad. A familiar ritual, to be sure, except that the wine wasn’t corked — it was a screw cap.

Is it me, or was this ritual a bit unnecessary?

Dear Wine Snob: The ritual was a bit unnecessary, but not for the reason you’re probably thinking. Screw cap wines, among the uninitiated, have a reputation of being cheap. Actually, many wineries are switching over to screw caps because the spoilage rate is reduced from eight percent (for corked) to one percent (for screw caps). So, as it’s unlikely that the wine was spoiled, the ritual was perhaps unnecessary. But it’s a nice gesture just the same.

Sex Surprise

Dear Bartender: I would like to sex surprise my husband this week. We’ve been married a year and already the sex is beginning to go downhill. (Like, since when is once every two weeks acceptable??!)

Should I sex surprise him on a weekend or on a Monday? He’s been busy at work and sometimes he comes home all tired. I’ve been sex surprising the FedEx man but I haven’t done that for awhile so I can be all his when I sex surprise my husband. Should I wear a negligee? A sports bra? Nothing?! I’ve sex surprised people I don’t love but never anything like this.

Help!

Dear Help!: OK let’s start with the facts: You love your husband; great. You want to sex surprise him; that’s probably a good thing, but not everyone likes surprises, even sex surprises. (Confidential to FedEx Men: Do you get tired of being sex surprised?) Third fact: Your husband seems to only want to have sex once every two weeks.

Those are all the facts, which leads me to three conclusions: 1) It’s anyone’s guess what will produce a desireable result, so you might as well go ahead and try something; 2) it’s probably best if you forever cease sex-surprising the FedEx man, unless: 3) your husband considers going to work for FedEx.

Wise Guy

Dear Bartender: I’ve got this close friend who I think the world of. He says that he loves me, but won’t try a relationship with me. When we get drunk, we often end up in bed together, but never have sex. We spend a ton of time together, and this prevents me from going out to find a real life and other people. I had eternal hope. Recently I managed to walk away from this situation. Did I blow it, or did I finally smarten up?

– Looking for somebody who wants me and who actually is available to love me (emotionally and physically)

Dear Long Name: Close friend, eh? You sure you’re not married? Shit, why have you wasted your time with someone who starts a realtionship worse than most are at the end? The best I can say about this is that it’s over — assuming that anything that barely started can actually be “over.” Congrats on walking away. Next time steer clear of people who are only interested in the divorce aspect of a relationship.

On the House

Dear Readers: WordPress generously collects the search engine terms you’ve used to find this site. Since we’re all here hanging out at this virtual bar, maybe it’s time you all found out a little bit about one another. Here’s a short list of what some of you are googling:

CAN ANAL SEX KILL YOU
DO BLOODY MARY MAKE YOU GAY
HOLE IN WALL TRICK BLOWJOB
DATING A BARTENDER
HOW TO SERIAL KILL
ANAL SEX BETWEEN LESBIANS

Now: Who wants to buy someone here a drink?

Momma’s Family

Dear Bartender: I just had my fourth child. My boyfriend doesn’t live with me but he comes over sometimes to give me money. Sometimes he doesn’t want to come and he sends his sister. I really should make him give me a money order because sometimes the money is less when the sister comes and I can’t prove she took it. This wouldn’t be a problem if we were married but he says he won’t marry me if he has to be 100% faithful. I don’t think he actually would cheat but just needs to know he’s not tied down. He’s had many girlfriends but I know he loves me and I don’t think he sees any of them any more except for one because she had a couple of babies with him too. (They were accidents.)

My question is, Should I get my hair cut? I always think I look thinner with a haircut.

– Sheila

Dear Sheila: Why stop there? You can lose 10 pounds cutting off your whole head.

Hand to Mouth

Dear Bartender: I’ve been working for many years in the service industry. I’ve got it down to where I’m pretty good at it — and I’ve kissed the right babies to make sure I’ll never get fired. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s awful. (You probably know what I mean.) Lately, I’ve worried that the awful is getting too awful — like I’m going to pull my hair out if I have to keep this smile on my face for one more second. I don’t want to give up my secure job, but the other day I almost spat someone’s coffee. Is it age? Is it something else? Am I burned out?

– Your Waitress

Dear Mabel: Um, I don’t want to say “duh” unless you say anything that makes me think you can actually get another job.

New York, New York

Dear Bartender: I saw a survey that said New Yorkers’s apprehension levels have barely changed in the five years since 9/11, even though there’s been no more attacks. A third of you think about 9/11 “every day.” It’s all a sharp contrast to the national numbers, where three-quarters say their lives have largely returned to normal. What’s up with that?

Dear Non-NYer: The only way I can explain it is that New York has a high residential turnover — people are always moving in and moving out. I would have asked a follow-up question of that two-thirds that live here but don’t think about 9/11 every day: When did you move to NYC?

No one I know who was here the day it happened doesn’t think about it all the time.