ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
On this gorgeous ANZAC Day afternoon in our cosmopolitan inland metropolis, a popular French Quarter bar manager got the laugh of his life after one of his barmen asked if he could go early.
Just as another wave of pub crawlers pour themselves through the front doors in their $299 off-the-rack two pieces.
“Ha!” laughed Michael MacDingwall.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding, mate. There’s no way you can go early. It’s four deep at the main bar. It’s one of the biggest days of the year!”
But Sam Klimtapus didn’t care.
Yesterday morning, he’d made a promise to his friends that he’d be ready to head out on the town for his college’s ‘Cheeky Tuesday’ goon-of-fortune night by 5pm – some four hours before his swing bar shift was due to finish.
“Mickey,” he said.
“I’ve got an exam tomorrow and I need to study for it. Please let me go, it’s a weeknight. It’s not that busy. You can save on wages and Frazer [owner] will be happy with you.”
MacDingwall laughed again.
“Shut up, you idiot. My hours are none of your business. And I couldn’t give a flying fuck about your exam. In fact, mate can you head on onto the floor for me and do a sweep?”
As a bar supervisor, Sam felt he was above working the floor.
He tells friends who aren’t cut from the hospitality cloth that the floor is typically reserved for transient backpacker workers and fresh hires out of high school.
For peasants that haven’t yet worn the sheen of their RSA competency card.
To a man of Sam’s bartending experience, it is the ultimate insult.
“Chop chop, Sam. We’re almost out of pots and schooners,” Mickey said, laughing.
Sam frowned, got a wet rag out of the sink and headed out onto the floor.
Mickey chuckled to himself.
“What a fucking moron. Asking to go early. What does he think this is? Bush week? Does he think the Diggers asked to leave Ypres early?”
Witnesses say Sam left twenty minutes after his shift was over, covered head to toe in sweat, liquor and broken dreams.
Michael’s shift ended at 3pm with the safe down a respectable $94.50 at change over.
More to come.
