A bar story from AnnieGoose
Every bar has its regulars. Most are a joy. Some are a project. And every so often, one moves from the first category to the second, and you realise you’ve been gritting your teeth for weeks.
The Regular 😔
I’ll call her M. She comes in most nights, and for a long time I had real sympathy for her. Her husband died a few years ago, and she has been grieving ever since. Genuinely, visibly miserable. When someone is carrying that, you give them a bit of grace. I did, happily.
But sympathy is like a bar tab: it runs out if nobody ever settles up.
Over time, M. has become hard work. Demanding, awkward, and somehow always needing something. I feel a small sinking sensation when she walks in, then feel guilty about the sinking sensation. Not a great cocktail. 🍹
The Night It Boiled Over 😤
Recently she came in as usual and ordered her drinks. There was one small complication: an outstanding bill from an earlier visit, sitting in my black book, where every unsettled tab gets written down until it’s paid.
I asked, politely, if she could settle up.
She said no. Flat out.
Her reasoning? She hadn’t been in that night, so she didn’t owe anything.
She absolutely had been in – it’s all on camera. IT’S IN THE BOOK. The drinks, the amount, all of it, written down at the time. That book isn’t a rumour or an opinion. It’s the one thing in this place that never has a bad day.
Where It Went Wrong 💥
If she’d said, “That doesn’t look right, can we check?”, I’d have gone through it gladly. We’re all fallible humans.
Instead she became rude, then nasty, insisting that I was the one out of line for asking. I stayed civil, but I’ll be honest: I was furious. Not about the money, but the entitlement of it all.
What Happens Now? 🤷♀️
Good question. I haven’t seen her since that night, and the money hasn’t appeared. So this story doesn’t have an ending yet.
What I do know is that being sympathetic doesn’t mean being a doormat. I can feel for what someone has been through and still expect basic decency, and payment for the drinks. Both things can be true at once.
To be continued… and please remember to pay your tab. 📖
Not Everyone’s Like That ⚓️
For every M., there’s a table of nice people too.
We’re in a little fishing village, so it’s only right that the bar is fisherman-friendly, and a fair few of our regulars make their living on the water. Ours come in when they’ve just been paid, and honestly, they’re some of the loveliest people we get through the door. Polite, decent, and they mix beautifully with everyone else in the bar – regulars, strangers, doesn’t matter.
Last week they turned up with a gift for me too: a compass. Someone else gave me a keyring separately – it looks gold. I’m fairly sure it isn’t – too light, probably plastic under a golden coating – but that’s not really the point. The point is they thought of me at all. 🧭
And here’s the bit that matters most: they always pay their bills. No arguing, no black book entries gathering dust. They just settle.
That’s the thing about running a bar. You get the full spectrum of people, the hard work and the easy joy, sometimes in the same week. You’d think the difficult ones would wear you down more than the good ones lift you up. Some weeks they nearly do. And then a lovely bunch of fishermen buy a stranger a drink, settle their tab without a second thought, and hand you a compass on the way out.
And you remember why you love this job anyway. ❤️
A Parting Smile
A duck walks into a bar, orders a drink, and tells the bartender:
“Put it on my bill.” 🤣🦆
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