50 minutes ago
3
Alcohol can make you do dumb things (not that I would know; I've only ever been completely normal while intoxicated 😇). People who do know, though, are the people who serve you: bartenders.
1. "New Year's Eve was always the shittiest night to bartend for two reasons. The first, you're working on New Year's Eve. The second is that everyone feels entitled to get plastered drunk. One NYE, two minutes to midnight, some douche ordered a round of dark rum shots for him and his ladyfriend. Against my advice, the two downed the shots. Immediately after, I could tell the girl entered the danger zone — she definitely had to puke. The ball was dropping, and this guy leaned in for an open-mouth kiss to ring in the new year. This sloppy make-out session happened right in front of me for about 10 seconds before this girl bird-fed her puke down this dudes throat. His reaction, you ask? He threw up her puke, plus his own puke, all over her dress and my bar. I think it was during this experience that I decided to get my ass in grad school."
2. "When I worked as a server for a high-end country club, one customer (after about 24 vodka tonics) asked my manager to get him a car to Long Beach Airport because he wanted to go to Vegas. Long story short, my manager told me to drive him to Long Beach in his car, and he arranged a private plane to pick him up. On the ride there, I kept asking him, 'Are you sure you want to do this?' He said, 'Bro, what do you think I am? A nerd!?' Long story short, the guy stayed up all night in Vegas and gambled away $3.2M after spending $29,000 on a private plane. The next morning, he had no idea how he got to Vegas and frantically called the country club to ask, 'What the fuck happened last night?'"
3. "I bartend in Chicago, and last summer, the block my bar is on had a huge street fest. There were drunks all day. Late that night, our kitchen was closed, and most of the bar had emptied out. Our cook went downstairs to change, and came back upstairs, his face completely white, and said, 'There's somebody passed out in the basement. There's blood and... chocolate cake everywhere.' I told everyone the bar was closed, and called an ambulance. Turned out some drunk goon toddled into our employees-only basement, got into one of the freezers, and began to go beast mode on a mostly frozen chocolate cake, then bashed his head and bled everywhere. The EMTs made sure he was alright, then wheeled him off as he puked all the way out of the bar. The follow-up to the story? One of our servers stored his Vespa down there. When I helped him bring it upstairs, we found chocolate cake all over the handlebars. Drunk bastard tried to RIDE A SCOOTER IN THE BASEMENT."
4. "I had a drunk customer who could not pay her bill run off and call 911, claiming I had stabbed her. My weapon of choice, you ask? A sweet potato fry. The reaction of the cop (who showed up to look for a blood trail) when I told him that the restaurant had discontinued sweet potato fries months ago was truly priceless. Rock-solid alibi."
5. "I've been a bartender at topless strip clubs for most of the past nine years. My favorite drunk interaction happened this past Halloween. We had decorated the bar with fake cobwebs and other Halloween decorations. A very drunk, very young customer decided to get a lap dance from one of the girls. I don't know how it happened, but by the end of the dance he was entirely tangled in the cobwebs. Looking over, all I could see was his hands flailing as he tried desperately to get out. I have never laughed so hard in my life. The bouncer finally had to cut him free with a knife. And it was just in time; as soon as he was freed, the kid ran to the bathroom and puked."
6. "I was a bartender, but this wasn't when I was bartending — it was my wedding. My wife and I decided we really wanted to have one hell of a party for our wedding, and somehow we thought a seven-hour open bar was a good idea. Here are just a handful of the results of such a bacchanal: One guy passed out underneath the urinals. One lady passed out in a stall. One guy vomited on his pregnant wife's shoes in the reception hall. Another guy passed out at his table and vomited right in the middle of the reception hall. It got so bad that my best man took the DJ's mic and said, 'People, the bus to the hotel isn't coming back for another three hours. Take it easy.' And then an hour later his pants were off, and he was dancing with my mom in his underwear."
"The aftermath: In the morning, I received a call from the front desk. They said that the hotel understands people drink and messes can be made, but this particular room was beyond the pale and asked if he could charge that room a special cleaning fee because he thought there was blood in the room. I said, 'If it's that bad, you do whatever you need to do.' My wife asked what the call was about, and I told her. Being inquisitive, she asked, 'How bad can it be?' So, she decided to check it out. As soon as she got off the elevator, this odor smacked her in the face. Once she got to the room, she saw there was shit (yes, feces) everywhere. There was a sea of shit on the floor of the bathroom. She also mentioned what looked like a hand smear of shit on the blanket on the bed, like a shit murderer had happened. It doesn't seem possible that someone could actually shit that much, but apparently it is."
7. "A particular customer used to come in, get hammered, and go into the men's room to pick the urinal cakes out of the urinal and sniff them to try and get high off the fumes."
8. "I had two regulars who would come in for Bears games like clockwork. They never missed a game in the two years I worked there. They were nice guys, married with kids and working as house painters. One day they got fall-down sloppy and started causing a ruckus. I told them that they had to clear out, and they stumbled to the sidewalk. Five minutes later, everyone in the bar was gathering around the front window. I looked out, and these two dudes were making out in the middle of Clark Street. Never saw them again."
9. "A woman at my bar had a few too many and decided to end the night by taking a shot of tequila before they left. She took the shot, and without the glass leaving her lips, she puked it back up into the shot glass. Needless to say, it was also all over the bar and herself. I signaled a door guy to get her out and clean it up. The bouncer came up to her and told her it's time to go home. She slurred, 'Just after I finish my drink,' and then slammed her own vomit back into her mouth. I couldn't stop laughing."
10. "I worked at a movie theater bar where we sold wine and beer. A lady came in who had apparently pre-gamed too much and downed a couple of bottles in the theater. She got the extra bottles from her friends after we cut her off when she spilled wine all over the lobby. When the movie was over, she came stumbling down the walkway, literally bouncing off the railings, and slammed a glass of wine into an employee, spilling it all over them. She then slammed herself into the counter and screamed, 'DO YOU SELL WINE TO GO?!' We told her no, and she ran off into the projector room because she 'thought it was the bathroom' and vomited red wine everywhere. Her husband was absolutely mortified, paid for damages from the puke, and left. That was a bad night for a lot of people."
11. "Not a bartender, but I was a cashier at an all-night convenience store. This guy walked in, completely plastered, wearing a hoodie with one of those huge front pockets. He went over to the fridge, reeeeeeal suspicious-like, and started to stuff the pocket with frozen burritos. I watched the whole thing unfold, not even subtly staring at him, but he kept peeking my way and snickering like he was getting away with something. Finally, he took a burrito to the microwave and waited for it to warm up. When he brought it up to the counter, I charged him $34.90 for the burrito, plus the nine other burritos in his pocket. He looked at the register, then back at me, then back to the register, then to me, and said, 'That's an expensive burrito...you're lucky I'm so hungry.' He paid and left. The thing that makes me laugh the most is the idea that he woke up the next morning with a hoodie full of melted burritos."
12. "Our local dental clinic had a farewell party for one of their employees. At the end of the night, they didn't want to leave. They were all pretty wasted, and my partner and I really wanted to get them out of there so we could clean up and go home. My partner busted out some shot glasses and said, 'Shots on the house!' The group went nuts and started high-fiving each other. My partner poured shots of Coca-Cola into each glass and gave them to the group. When we put the glasses on the counter, one of the girls in the group said, 'Oh no! Not Jack Daniels!' She and another girl started protesting that they wouldn't drink shots while the guys in the group egged them on. The girls finally agreed to drink, and my partner and I led the last toast of the night. I took my 'shot' and then watched everyone else take theirs, reacting as if they all had a hit of moonshine. 'Oh my God, I'm done for the night. No more for me!'"
13. "I used to work at a bar on a lake, and people would spend the entire day on their yachts and come back to my bar in the evening to get even more drunk. Most were regulars, so I knew they would just go to sleep on their yachts and wouldn't be driving. One day, this new guy got so drunk that he tried to pay his $100 tab with his insurance card. I argued with him for five minutes before his wife intervened and told him that it wasn't his credit card. The guy ended up falling in the lake that night. I was silently satisfied."
14. "I worked at a local bar, and two regulars came in really drunk and stoned. They ordered beers and just stared into the mirror on the back of the bar. Finally, one of the guys, expressionless, took his bottle and tapped his buddy's with it, making it foam all over the bar. The other guy looked down at the beer going everywhere, and just as expressionless, slammed his bottle as hard as he could down on the first guy's beer. Glass shattered all down the bar; about 20 people were hit with glass. It went into my ice chest as well, which became the biggest issue. They looked up at me, still expressionless. I said, 'You know you gotta go now.' They just nodded and walked out."
15. "The cook where I used to work had a sports bottle full of wine all the time. We would put the outdated wine in a bin, and he would 'take the bin out' every day. So he had an endless supply of wine. This stuff is pretty yummy, really; the oxidation adds a nice complexity to the wine. I gave him a ride home most days, but one day I could not find him anywhere, so I sat down at the bar for dinner and a beer. I figured he would show up before too long, but he didn't. I guessed he got a ride home and headed out, but when I walked up to my truck I saw something under — it was the missing cook. He was sleeping between the back and front wheels on the passenger side. If I had not seen him under the truck, he would have been run over. Judging by how difficult it was to get him to wake up and get him into the truck, I am pretty sure starting the truck would not have woken him."
16. "I was working a very large fashion show with 'VIP' guests. After the show, these VIP tables stayed to look at certain garments again. During this time, one guy threw up on himself, the table, and the guy next to him. These two (covered in vomit) then got up on the stage and pissed on one of the mannequins. While the security chased them out, one of them ran through a large glass door and cut himself up pretty bad. And when we were cleaning up afterward, we found multiple wine glasses full of piss and vomit hidden under their table."
17. "I worked in a wedding hall. We had a small reception of 50 people, and everyone was having a lot of fun and getting plastered. Except for one guy with a tiny moustache. He was drinking straight whisky, glass after glass, and he didn't look like he was having any fun. He was just at the bar, drinking alone, not talking to anyone. So, as I served him his last drink, I told him that I was cutting him off, just as the groom approached the bar. Tiny moustache guy chugged the whisky, turned around, and yelled, 'IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!' Then, he punched the groom straight in the chin with all his drunken momentum. I had a hard time trying to explain to security what had happened over the radio."
18. "I work at a country club, and you would assume the members are more civil than regular bar patrons. Sadly, that's not really the case. At a luau event, we found out that a male member was sleeping with another member's wife, which turned into an all-out fight in the pool. The guy who was getting cheated on was shitfaced and got his ass kicked to hell before the cops came. What a fun night."
19. "A customer wanted to keep my pen, but I said no. To prove (in his drunken state) that he was 'the man,' I got him to buy it off me for $70."
20. "I work in a dive karaoke bar. One Monday night, a girl came in who we had lovingly nicknamed 'Shitshow'. She was already loaded, and I told her that under no circumstances was she allowed in. I tried to ignore her until I couldn't anymore. She was giving out mini-bottles of vodka outside the bar, so I went to intercede. I pointed to the security camera, and in her drunken stupidity, things escalated VERY quickly into a yelling match. She refused to leave and was threatening to defecate in the ashtrays. Then she proceeded to drop her pants and put her booty on the window. Then she crab-walked around on the sidewalk for a bit while I pretended to call the police. That usually intimidates people enough, but not her. Then I actually called them. They had a long talk with her, as I filled out a trespassing form. Three hours later, she walked in and sat down at the bar. Cops came again, and they ran after her, but she successfully fled. Just another Monday."
21. "I had a guy walk out without paying his tab one night. The credit card he'd used to open the tab turned out to be bunk, so we couldn't do anything about it. A few weeks later, he and his buddies came back for drinks. I told him that he'd left a tab open a few weeks before, and he'd have to settle up first. He acted put out, but paid the old tab off in cash and gave me another credit card to open a new one. They got wasted and ran up another very large tab. During their shenanigans, he thought it would be hilarious to throw his keys at me. After dodging them, I held on to them behind the bar. He and his friends tried to skip out on their tab again, but the dumb bastard had to come crawling back when he realized we still had his keys, and drunkenly begged us to give them back. He had to use two or three different cards to pay off the tab before we would give them back, all the while he was yelling at us for being dicks. He was subsequently banned from the bar."
22. "I work in a university town, and this girl came in and tried to argue that she was the inventor of the mason jar. She then continued to drink excessively with her hipster friends. We eventually cut her off after she face-planted down a five-step staircase. Every time she asked for another shot, we had to tell her the story of her falling down the stairs. We had to tell her a good six times before she left, after whispering sweet nothings in French to the other bartender."
23. "There was one drunk (and likely high) guy who came behind our bar and grabbed the knife that we use for cutting limes. He held it to his own head, and his friend came over to try to talk him down. He then stabbed his friend in the eye."
24. And finally, "When you serve a patron and he literally pisses his pants while on your barstool, you have a moment of clarity. I got an IT job the following week and never looked back."
What's the wildest drunken behavior you've ever seen in public? Tell me in the comments or use the anonymous form below. Your response may be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed article!
Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, you can call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) and find more resources here.
English (US) 