No, really. I Hate You...

"Yeah. Can I get a Captain and coke? But, listen,  can you make it kinda strong?"

Yes, yes I can. For the three extra fucking dollars it costs to pour you a double. Or? I can do a high pour, and make you think it's a long pour. Because, you know, I'm a dick like that.

I mean, really, if you would have tipped more than 50 fucking cents on any drink that you ordered so far this evening, I might consider pouring a little bit extra.

Maybe. 

But since you have tipped 50 fucking cents on every single order? 

Whether I rang in $1.50 or 10.50?

Yeah.

Fuck you.

I will raise the bottle all the way to the ceiling, still doing a 3 count, and you will buy the "I made it extra strong for you" bullshit, even though you just told me that you used to work at a bar, somewhere, sometime...

I mean, I don't hate you as a person... I hate the idea of you, and every one of YOU that I deal with on a daily basis.

"Hey! It's this asshole's 21st birthday. What kind of shot are you gonna buy him?"

Hmm.

Nope.

You buy him a shot, and then?

I will be happy to buy a shot for the guy.

However? I do not understand this whole entitlement thing that people have about their birthdays. 

For real

. Do not ever, ever, ask the bartender to buy anyone anything.

Ever.

I will, because it's someone's birthday, right?

But if someone walks into my bar and doesn't pay for a fucking thing, tip aside; there is no way in Hell I'm gonna buy the first shot.

If you tell me it's someone's birthday? I'll be happy to buy them a shot. If you EXPECT me to buy a shot, however,  just because you happened to be born on this date 21 years ago?

Fuck off.

People are born every fucking day that didn't ask to be born.

You are a jack off.

Also?

I understand drunk people.

They piss me off sometimes.

I usually forgive them, let it go, because they are fucked up and all that... right?

But?

If you just happen to be that one guy?

Whose first name starts with Jeff?

Don't come into my bar and try to order a drink after 2AM.

Because, yes, I did call last call.

And yes, I am still serving until 3.

Unless you happen to be that guy.

Whose first name starts with Jeff...

Just so you know, if you're that dude?

You can come into my bar at 10PM and I will still say, "Shit man, I'm sorry. I already called last call." Because really?

I fucking hate you.

Things No One Really Needs to Know at 5AM

The biggest problem with bartending is the crazy hours. When all of the normal people in the world are waking up for work, or soundly sleeping, bartenders are getting home, winding down, checking e-mails, facebook and waiting for the alarm clock to sound so they can wake up their kids and get them to school and finally pass out.

At least this bartender is.

Sometime after e-mails and facebook, there is little to keep my eyelids open but television.

Why not just go sleep?

Because if I am not awake to see the kids off to the bus?

Husband dozes a bit in the chair while they dress and get ready.

Which means their socks don't match, if they wear any, they do not brush hair or teeth and they tend to go to school without breakfast and dressed like homeless children.

Trin also decides to wear her makeup to school French hooker style.

The school serves breakfast, so you wouldn't think it'd be a big deal, but really? I do not want CPS to find out my kids don't eat breakfast.

I also do not want the school calling to ask my why my 11 year-old daughter is wearing size 6X shorts with jeggings.

So... I usually watch the Animal Planet channel until they get up.

This is because they never go to paid programming in the wee hours of the morning. A fatigued brain and infomercials are a bad mix.

I learned that when I found myself perched on the edge of the couch, phone in hand, ready to commit to life long payments of ONLY $29.95 for a carpet cleaner.

I do not have any carpet in my house.

So, yeah. Animal Planet it is.

At 5am? The channel puts on some disturbing shit.

For example?

There was some documentary about wildlife in Africa or somewhere that involved a dead hippo.

The film crew sits in the dark and films the scavangers that come to feed of the carcass.

Yeah. Fucking super.

I learned this morning that hyenas are quite possibly the most disgusting animals on the planet.

Not only are they eating the rotting carcass of a hippo, they like to roll on it, because who doesn't want to smell like a dead, decomposing hippo?

Then I learned that crocodiles are scavengers, which I didn't know.

Hyenas do not like crocodiles, they will fight for the meal if there are only a few crocs, but as soon as the whole party shows up?

Hyenas are no where to be found.

I also learned that lions are mostly assholes.

They come and chase away the hyenas AND the crocs, sniff the dead hippo and then wander away.

They don't want to eat the hippo, they just don't want anyone else to eat the hippo.

So, lions are just dicks.

Also, at some point, I realized that some asshole had placed a camera INSIDE the dead hippo.

The fuck?

I mean, in the name of science and all that?

Who the fuck cares what happens to a dead hippo?

Really?

  

AND THEN some crazy lady suits up, because hippos carry deadly bacteria, like anthrax, which I also did not know.

She wants to examine the contents of the hippo's stomach, which contains grass. Huge fucking surprise there, huh?

Useful to know though, that should I ever come across a hippo carcass, I shouldn't touch it.

Anthrax and all that, because otherwise I would probably go over and pet it and shit.

As the alarm goes off, I get up to get the girls ready with a slightly nauseated feeling, thinking about dung beetles, stinky hyenas, vultures, crocodiles and wondering how they decided which asshole had to wade through crocodiles and hyena to shove a camera in the dead hippo's belly.

And also wondering, who the fuck cares what happens to animal carcasses in the wild and what sort of person suggests such a study.

I find myself questioning their mental status as well as the mental status of the people that choose to fund such a study...

Hmm. Let's donate money to something... 

Cancer research? Alzheimer's research? Parkinson's, MS, diabetes, any other debilitating disease research?

No, no. I want my contribution to make a difference.

Goodwill, Salvation Army, Humane Society?

Nope.

Dead hippo decomposition?

YES!!! YES! That's the one I want to contribute to!

The fuck?

Keyword Analysis WTF?

The following keywords have directed new visitors to my blog...

Over thirty people have used the keywords "donkey sex" to find my blog. This is obviously due to some sort of donkey breeding program. I was unaware of the decline in the donkey population, but obviously, there is an extensive "save the donkeys" breeding program all around the world... but mostly in the UK.

"Nair on my ass" probably represents some sort of horrendous industrial accident at the Nair plant, because no one in their right mind would put that shit on their ass on purpose. If you are the praying kind, please pray for those poor poor people. They will never be the same.

Similarly, "anal mud" can only mean that someone somewhere in the US was involved in some sort of extreme fall into mud. Probably when they were naked.

"Nude sword fight" possibly has something to do with "Xanax crazy". I am not going to speculate as to the goings on, but I bet it was one hell of a weekend.

"Why do I stagger and black out when drinking" led someone in the UK to my blog... Um. Should that guy return to read this one? It's probably because you are an alcoholic. I mean maybe you were roofied, but probably you are just a drunk.

"Krissy Indiana Blog" mostly means that I am sorta famous. Almost. The money should be rolling in any time now...

"Blow in penis death" do not, under any circumstances put blow in your penis. That's my pubic service announcement for the week. 

"Monologues about cooties" Um. The fuck? Get out of your parent's basement. Or get a hobby or something.

"Vagina spandex" obviously means that a disturbing amount of people have been refused a sex change operation and they are searching for a prosthetic vagina made of spandex.

Probably.

"Jack off", "wtf people" and "fuck my boss" indicates an alarming rise of passive-aggressive personalities that type into google the things they really want to say the people around them.

The fact that someone googled, "shoulder rides" indicates a rise of stupidity in the general population. Shoulder rides. Not fucking rocket science. If you need to google it, please, please do not reproduce.

"Scarf wearing pig" means that finally, people are tired of watching cat videos on youtube.

"Dependent boobs"... Um. I got nothing for that one.

"Midget anal raping" For the love of God, get some fucking counseling.

"Krissy drunk"...Again with the famous thing. 

Suicide Awareness and Prevention

Suicide Awareness Week

My great grandmother committed suicide.

My husband has survived two suicide attempts.

I do not know a single person who doesn't know someone that has either attempted or completed suicide.

Nearly 30,000 people every year die of suicide.
An estimated 18 veterans of our armed forces commit suicide every day.

People call them cowards.

People say how selfish they are, killing themselves and letting their loved ones live with the pain and the guilt.

People are idiots.

The CDC reports that about 9% of Americans are depressed occasionally and that 3.4% of Americans suffer from major depression.

For all of the progress being made, there is still a very real stigma attached to mental illness, and very little understanding. 

Clinical depression is a very real and very painful illness.

For everyone concerned.

Major depression isn't something you can just get over.
You can not make a decision to simply suck it up and be happy.
Major depression must be treated with drugs to reestablish the chemical balance of the brain.
Most depressed people do not  even know they are depressed, they find themselves self-medicating with drugs, alcohol, food, or what ever, adding substance abuse problems to the original mental illness.

I am not a doctor and I may be totally off base here, but to me suicide is not so much something a person does as much as it is something that happens to people.

For example,

I remember a friend of mine being admitted for suicidal ideation.

She should never have been suicidal.

Her doctor, a general practitioner, had prescribed her an anti-depressant for mild depression.

When that failed to treat the depression successfully, the doctor prescribed TWO additional anti-depressants as well as an anti-psychotic drug.

All four drugs carried a black box warning, all four were known to actually cause suicide in some cases.

Her doctor, quite obviously an idiot, as they can't all graduate at the top of their class, had no business prescribing these drugs in the first place.

A responsible doctor would have referred her to a psychiatrist or at least reconsidered the drugs when the pharmacy and insurance company insisted that it was a dangerous cocktail and at first refused to fill the last of the drugs until the doctor called to argue with them, claiming she knew what she was doing, she was a doctor for God's sake.

My friend was admitted to a psychiatric locked ward weeks later.

Most people can not image a moment so hopeless and dark and painful that there is seemingly no other way out than death.

I certainly can't.

I guess I'm rambling here, but what I am trying to say is that it is Suicide Awareness Week, and if you are going to be aware of suicide, you must be aware of mental illness also.

If there were less stigma attached to mental illness, perhaps more people would seek the help they need without such drastic measures.

Mental illness is obviously not a choice someone makes and seeking help for it should be no different than seeking treatment for diabetes or cancer.

And then, also, this family lost a loved one to suicide, they run an annual fundraiser for the Out of Darkness Walk for suicide prevention.

So come on down if you are in the area and support a worthwhile cause that doesn't get nearly enough attention.

Where Were You...

I remember the smoke and the screams and the people jumping from God knows how high.

I remember when the plane went down in Pennsylvania and the one that hit the Pentagon.

I remember the sense of horror when we realized that the first plane was not, in fact, a freak accident.

I remember watching the news for days and days, holding my newborn baby, tears streaming down my face.

What I remember most those next few weeks after September 11th, though?

I remember it being the first time that I felt like an American.

I had always been an American, obviously.

It was the first time, I suppose, I felt a sense of pride in being American.

I cried for the innocents, for the first responders, for the families that would never get to bury their loved ones. I listened in awe to the calls that were made from the plane before it went down in Pennsylvania.

I remember thinking, if I didn't have this newborn baby, I'd have gone right down to the recruiter's office.

I wanted to go and dig through the rubble.

I wanted to give blood.

I wanted to DO something, change something.

I wanted to help clean up the mess and show those people that we were wounded, but not broken.

I was nice to strangers.

I was nice to everyone, which is weird.

I remember thinking, quite suddenly that all of the bullshit I had been worried about didn't even matter in the grand scheme of things.

I bought a flag.

I bought a flag magnet and a ribbon thing for the car.

I had never given any thought to being an American before.

I didn't just want to be a better American.

All of a sudden, I wanted to be a better PERSON.

That day, September 11th, 2001, changed me fundamentally.

And I suspect, changed more than a few of our generation.

For all the pain and fear and and uncertainty of those first few months,

I think it made us all better people.

Generation Y

Self centered and irresponsible.

We had such a small, small view of the world around us.

And then?

Suddenly?

We saw our whole country and so much of the world unite in the days and weeks that followed September 11th.

As the towers fell and people stood across the world and said, "Today, we are all Americans".

I realized how big the world is, and also how very small it is.

The world may have stopped turning that day in September, 2001.

But when it started turning again, it mattered to me in a way it never had before.

More Free Advice No One Should Need Before Buying a Bar

To no one in particular...

In case you ever want to own a bar? These are examples of what not to do. They shouldn't have to be said, but apparently they do.

Your customers surely appreciate a free beer once in a while. It's perfectly acceptable to say, "I got that" when someone orders a beer. 

It is not okay to say "I got that" to every single order for an entire evening whenever anyone orders anything. That is how you run a seven hundred dollar tab in a single night.

Then you wonder why you aren't making any money.

You have to be fucking kidding me.

First, you are paying for your own liquor twice.

You are paying the wholesale... and then giving away what is at least $3.75 EACH SHOT.

That someone already ordered and was going to pay for!

No one should have to tell you how fucking retarded that is.

Second, you aren't tipping the bartender.

The person you are buying shots for certainly isn't tipping the bartender.

So your bartender is pissed off, and you can't pay your phone bill.

Sure, you're just trying to be a nice guy... but you are really just a jack off.

I may have already mentioned not getting all fucked up in your own bar.

I don't mean tipsy and happy.

I mean all kinds of fucked up.

It is never, ever okay to claim that you are going to get your gun and shoot all of these mother-fuckers. 

First of all, everyone knows you are full of shit.

Second, these mother-fuckers just happen to be your customers.

Jack off.

It is also not okay to get drunk, wander around your own bar and tell anyone that will listen that your husband is cheating on you every time he leaves your sight.

The fuck is wrong with you?

If you want everyone out of the bar by 3:30?

If you're pissed off because that one guy walked out with an open bottle of beer?

If you expect your bartenders to play bouncer every night,` even on the weekends?

Probably you should hire bigger fucking bartenders.

It is perfectly legal for there to be drinks on THE BACK BAR after 3:30am.

One would assume you understood this concept when you stagger your drunk ass back into the bar at a quarter to five in the morning and order shots for yourself and your friend.

Plus, if you are going to follow the laws by the book, maybe you should start with following the laws for fuck's sake.

All of them.

If you can't meet your overhead?

You should probably lower it.

That doesn't mean fire all your employees and claim that they all just up and quit and then hire all new employees to take their spots at the same pay.

Want a really simply way to lower your costs?

Turn the motherfucking air conditioner down a little bit, or even off for the TEN TO TWELVE HOURS that no one is in there.

Jesus Christ.

It doesn't get any simpler than that.

A bar without women with a fucking money pit.

No guys want to spend their time in a bar without women.

No straight guys anyway.

Women will not come into a bar where they feel uncomfortable.

A sure way to alienate women?

The "helicopter".

You are the fucking owner of this establishment!

No one, and I mean no one wants to see you pull your dick out and wave it around.

Thank god I never actually witnessed that nonsense.

Do not ever claim that the reason you are unable to pay for entertainment is because a bartender took a whole two days of her pay out of the register.

We make $5 an hour.

First of all, you look like a jack off for talking shit about your own bartender.

Plus, it doesn't take a genius to know that you're lying.

Do not stand outside the door of your competition and yell to their patrons that anyone that comes to your bar will get a free shot.

Why?

Because, jack off, they are going to come over, take a shot and go back to what they were doing at the other bar.

In case you are unaware, you are further fucking yourself when you take money out of your own cash register to take your own customers down the road to the other bar to buy them shots.

You've been around for too long for people to believe you're doing it in good faith.

You are not supporting anyone, or winning customers.

You are making an ass out of yourself, and I'm sure the competition is laughing at you all the way to the bank.

If you feel like everyone is out to get you, you should probably analyze your concept of business.

If you are unable to accept responsibility for the fact that your business is failing?

You have no business owning a bar.

Or any business, for that matter.

You can not continue to blame other people, or yell obscenities at the competition because you are losing your asses off.

When you treat people like shit?

You get treated like shit.

Golden fucking rule, people.

I think I am all done ranting now.

Back to absurdity.

So you want to be a bar owner, huh?

There are a few things one has to have in order to own and operate a successful bar.

First and foremost? 

Testicles.

You do not have to be a man, but you have to be willing to face conflict, fire people and be assertive.

If you are a pussy and continue to lay people off, claiming that you don't have the money to pay employees, when you really just don't have the balls to actually fire them?

You have no business owning a bar.

If you can not pay your employees?

You probably shouldn't be paying out $200-400 a night for your entertainment.

If the bar is in a small town and you've been fucking your employees over consistently for the last few years?

Stop denying it and trying to make excuses.

Everyone knows and you look like an idiot.

Stop for a moment and realize that you are a business owner, and you have a certain responsibility to your employees.

There's not a whole hell of a lot of job security in bartending, but wondering from day to day whether I will be able to feed my kids takes a toll on our owner/employee relationship.

You can not continue to play games with peoples lives and not expect any repercussions. Again, with the small town thing.

People eventually realize that you are not good people, and they certainly don't want to frequent your establishment.

Once you have lost the respect of your employees as well as your patrons? You're pretty much screwed.

You might as well close the doors right now.

Do NOT get all fucked up in your own bar.

You can't complain about an unpaid $35.00 tab when you are running a $700 tab in your own bar.

Then?

If you do get all fucked up?

Do NOT alienate your guests.

Idiot.

Do NOT stand in the middle of the street and yell "FUCK YOU" to the bar next door.

That's certainly not going to bring any business in.

You look like a lunatic.

If you can't afford to buy liquor and beer and meet your payroll?

You are doing something fucking wrong.

Continuing to do it wrong, over and over, doesn't really make any fucking sense, now does it?

Maybe, just maybe, you should suck it up and admit that you are clueless.

Maybe you are in way over your head and it's no one's fault but your own.

If you want to know why business has been declining so rapidly, and you aren't seeing any profit, despite your bartender, entertainment and atmosphere changes?

The problem, quite obviously, is you.

There's a great deal more to this posting, but I'm tired and stressed and have to look for a job.

Obviously.

More later.

Unfit for Human Company

I'm all wound up.

Stressed.

Smoking like a chimney, every muscle clenched.

Hurts like hell but I can't seem to relax them.

Self medication.

Tequila.

Too tired to sleep.

I've been here before. 

It's not a pretty place to be.

So angry.

So fucking angry.

Anger with no direction is a bad, bad thing.

Leaves you on edge, constantly.

Leaves you waiting, praying actually, that someone will say one wrong thing to you.

The bullshit with the VA... My god I am tired of filling out forms and mailing shit.

And then having to mail more shit.

Then?

They send you letters you don't understand and no one is available to explain them.

They don't even give you an option to wait on hold anymore.

They give you an appointment time, say they will call you in a week.

They never do.

Then they schedule a home visit so they can tell you something or another about retro pay.

Fiduciaries, character references, budget plans and expenses, copies of every fucking thing that you don't actually have on hand, a list of all your relatives, living and dead, all the way back to Adam and Eve. All signed in blood. With witnesses.

I'm exaggerating here slightly.

How do they not know that I am too fucking tired and overwhelmed to deal with this shit.

Or any shit.

I am needing to crawl in a hole right now, and not speak to anyone.

The caregiver's program is awesome, but it's more paperwork.

The fact that it's obviously a necessary step doesn't fucking matter at this point.

I am hating paper.

Really.

Giving the notebook dirty looks and everything.

Who the hell hates paper?

Ridiculous.

I know it's all necessary, I know it all has to be done, and it will be, but I don't have to happy about doing it.

I know it's really not their fault and they deal with overwhelmed families all the time.

I just had to bitch about it all for a minute.

Gonna go crawl under a rock now.

Which sounds bad, but isn't.

I do not even have the capacity to nice to people right now.

Any people.

Better off alone under a rock cursing at no one.