Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Last night after work, I headed out to Zappagirl's house to get some dinner and pick up my copy of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD like a good geek girl. I figured the biggest of my worries for the evening was going to be assembling the storage unit that Zappagirl had, in an effort to boost her accessories sales, conned me into buying. (It didn't take much convincing. I needed a new storage rack. Actually, I need another room in my apartment for storage, but that's a whole 'nother blog.)

I was in the process of taking the shrink wrap off my new purchases when Zappagirl's phone rang. She answered, then handed the receiver to me. "It's Rosencrantz," she explained.

Rosencrantz was calling with bad news. It seems Dino, my former boss at The Warehouse, was in a serious motorcycle accident and was in the hospital. She promised to send me his room number and visiting hours via email.

An hour later, Zappagirl's phone rang again. It was Mike Dangers, calling for exactly the same reason. He had already been to see Dino, and gave me a laundry list of fractures and injuries. The hospital staff had even let him stay while they were running mobility tests on Dino; they had thought that Mike Dangers was family.

"But we are family," I replied.

And as odd as it sounds, my former co-workers from the Warehouse were, and continue to be, very much a family to me. (Nothing against my actual family, of course. I feel priveleged to have been born into such a supportive and loving clan.) Like any family, we've had our squabbles. Sure, I grumbled when my bartending partner would shirk his duties to flirt with customers and leave the dishes for me. I rolled my eyes when the owner would hold staff meetings and spend ten minutes lecturing us on how many ice cubes to put in a glass. But the good times far outweighed the petty differences.

I remember attending many softball games over the summer, sneaking coolers of beer into Eden Park and grilling hot dogs and metts. I was often in charge of the grilling, since my athletic abilities leave something to be desired. I was pretty stingy with my duties, and earned the nickname "Weiner Nazi" (after the "Soup Nazi" episode of Seinfeld.

I remember the yearly camping trips, held between the Anniversary party and Memorial Day. They had started as houseboat trips at Lake Cumberland, but we switched to cabins after an unfortunate incident involving a barback, a JetSki, and the side of a boat. The employees at the State Dock were always good enough to look the other way as we discreetly lugged coolers full of alcoholic beverages (Russell County is a dry county) into our rental boats. They probably didn't mind, since we usually spent a small fortune in the gift shop buying bigger and better Super Soakers as a means of protection from our manager Tomm. (I own two full sized ones, and a pistol sized one. Tomm had the model with the backpack tank.) We ate like kings, drank like fishes, and played poker until the sun came up. For several years, it was the only vacation I took. We eventually moved the excursions to Hueston Woods, where we took over the lounge at the Lodge to watch the season finale of The X Files and, one evening, video of Dave destroying the front axle of his Yukon while off-roading.

On more than one occasion, the employees stayed at the bar after we'd closed, telling stories of the night's occurences, plunking quarters into the Area 51 machine in the corner, and watching surveillance tapes of funny things that happened at the door. (Note to people who make a scene as they're being thrown out: yes, we watch those tapes. And we laugh. A lot. We especially liked the night that our duty officers made underage drinkers do push-ups on the sidewalk outside the bar at 1:00 am.)

There was one night when the bar hadn't been very busy due to snow and ice, and Dino and I sat at the bar chit-chatting until 7:00 am. We headed over to First Watch for breakfast, then did donuts in the empty parking lot in Dino's CRX.

Dino organized football outings at Tickets Sports Café every Sunday in the fall, and tried desperately to convert everyone into Green Bay Packers fans. (And he succeeded with at least one of us, although I threaten to burn my Favre jersey in effigy every year.)

We were there for each other in times of crisis. When Tomm had an appendectomy, we descended upon the hospital en masse to visit him and held benefit nights to help him cover his medical bills. When our dear friend Eric passed away suddenly, late night phone calls went out like lightning, making sure that everyone was aware. Many of us spent the entire week assisting with funeral arrangements, planning nights where the cover charges would be donated to his scholarship fund, and supporting each other in our time of grieving.

And now, with one of our fearless leaders ailing in the hospital, the calls are once more going out, seeking out the prodigal members of the family. I haven't been a bartender at the Warehouse for a few years, and Zappagirl and I haven't made an appearance in over a month, but I still know that if I dropped in at the bar tonight there would be hugs all around and concerned words about Dino's status. It would be like a big family reunion, with cheap drinks and better music.

And all I can do is worry about my bar brother, pray for his recovery, and try to figure out where to find a Packers trinket in Cincinnati in the middle of August before I go to the hospital tonight.