Holiday office parties tend to unleash all of the pent up energy and frustration that work has built up over the last 12 months. Add the stress of the holidays, and being forced to make nice with work people after hours and throw in open bar and you have a recipe for disaster. I'm not even talking about my own office party which saw enough inappropriate, debaucherous and borderline illegal behavior to make me think twice about downing the next Makers Mark and Coke. (No Jack! I know, right?!) You see, yesterday, I got to do what very few have ever done before. I observed an office party while stone cold sober.
Now that it is cold as fuck and I've stopped running every day after work, my usual routine is to go to my local watering hole on the way home from work. Some nights it means a couple of beers and then heading home. Some nights (read: last Thursday) it goes from a couple of beers to buying 40s and staying up to beat Super Mario Galaxy on Wii.
Monday, I left work around 5:30 and headed to my de facto favorite watering hole. This bar and I have a very dysfunctional relationship. It's very love hate. It's like the cycle of abuse in a domestic relationship. Everything seems to be great and then *boom* I go for happy hour and it takes me 20 minutes to get a beer. I threaten to leave forever and they make it up to me and then all is well for awhile until they cancel Guitar Hero night to put on a division III football game. You get the picture. Despite its shortfalls, I love this bar because they have an awesome drink special and the bartenders know my drink, my name and what it means when I point at someone and tap my upper left arm.
As I arrived at the bar yesterday evening, it was absolutely packed with a group of late 20 / early 30 somethings. I elbow my way through girls in dresses and dudes in suits and plop myself down in an empty bar stool. One of the new bartenders, who is quickly becoming a favorite, comes over to confirm that I want a lager. "Dude," I say. "What the fuck is going on?" He shakes his head, "Office party. They've already run up a $2k bar tab. Open bar until 6." "Well," I reply. "You know what that means, right?" He laughs, "It means your drinks are on the house till six." And this is why I keep coming back to this bar despite the repeated abuse. (Not the face though, they know better).
So I begin to drink and observe the office party that is supplying me with my beer until six. After only a few minutes of observation, it is obvious that they've been here a while. For example:
1. One girl is walking around in bare feet. Which would be awesome. Except that we aren't on the beach in fucking Punta Cana. We are in a bar in Philadelphia in December.
2. The bartenders ran out of shot glasses.
3. A spontaneous dance circle formed when Akon's "Smack That" began to play.
4. "It's Not Over" by Chris Dautry caused one dude to start hugging and swaying while singing along at the top of his lungs.
5. Ties were being worn as head bands.
At this point, my friend and I are chatting with another lady bartender we know from a different bar. A guy in his early 30s wanders over from the office party. He looks Irish, medium build with dark hair. He's staring creepily at us and as he walks by he "brushes" up against our bartender friend. The brush wasn't an incidental brush, but more of a "I'm gonna brush by you and smell your hair and then go masturbate in the bathroom." The brush can be done subtly and often goes unnoticed in the cramped quarters of a bar. Except that we weren't in cramped quarters. So the first time he walks by and does "the brush" we laughed it off as "Dude, that guy is fucking wasted." However, after three more brushes and one full-on butt grab, I went to go get the manager. So the manager talks to the guy and sends him back to the office party on the other side of the bar. The manager apologizes and promises to keep his eye on the Creeper. Five minutes later, Creeper is back on our side of the bar touching some lady playing Megatouch.
There are few things in life that I hold as sacred as a game of Erotic Photo Hunt on Megatouch. Nobody should be distracted and/or interrupted while playing EPH. That's fucking bullshit. The Creeper cost this lady at least one magnifying glass. Total crap. The manager sees this whole thing play out and literally chases Creeper back to the other side of the bar. Sure enough, a couple minutes later, he is leaning into my friend. Now the manager literally drags him out of the bar and tells him not to come back inside.
A group of the girls from the office party start to follow him outside to find out why Johnny Grabass isn't allowed back in the bar. One of the women comes over to me and asks, "Do you know why they kicked that guy out?" I tell her, "Yeah. Because he's a total Creeper that's been groping my friend for the last hour." "That can't be!" she responds. "That's my husband. What was the guy who was groping your friend wearing?" I would have been happy to draw a sketch of the Creeper had I had some charcoals or colored pencils or say, talent. Nonetheless, I described him as follows: "He is about 5'9", dark brown hair, looks to be of Irish heritage. He was wearing khaki pants, drinking what looked like a Hoegarden, had a black mock turtleneck on and a light colored blazer." Her response?
"Well that couldn't be my husband! He's wearing a sportcoat, not a blazer." Yeah. I'm sure there's a doppelganger of your husband running around in a blazer instead of a sport coat groping strangers. My bad. Please send my apologies to your innocent, husband who isn't the guy acting like he's tripping on E for the first time. Boy is my face red.
Denial must be awesome.
