Bar Stool Diaries

Bar Stool Diaries- The Bottom Ten Today's entry is dedicated to 10 bar people and practices that I love to loathe. I seek the bar to feel good about myself, and cocktails aren't the only things that aid me in this endeavor. By inspiring ascendancy and anger, these folks and follies invigorate me. But make no mistake; these are the things that get my goat. Without them, my goat would sit idly beside me, bored, restless, begging for some of my cashews. That just wouldn't be quite as much fun. The Top 10 Bar Things That Get My Goat: 10. "That's #^&?!@ pass interference! Come on, ref!" The guys who deem it appropriate to celebrate with intensity every four-yard gain during the San Diego Tech vs. San Jose A & M football game at 11:45 p.m. on a Saturday because they have twenty bucks on whether or not the Webelos cover the spread.

9. The Golden Tee Meathead Show

You just smashed that digital ball 400 yards! High five! Now go to the driving range and try to bean the kid in the ball-pick-up machine!

8. Playing hooky

Girls clad scantily in short skirts and long boots who go on the offensive just because I happen to take notice. Are these the same women who, one year later on the weekend before their wedding, ask me to suck LifeSavers from their bodies in exchange for one of my dollars?

7. Going to see a man about a dog

Men's restrooms that provide two places to go. One is a urinal, which is to be applauded. The other however, is a standard household toilet with no stall behind which to hide the shame that accompanies requiring a seat. This is not the Citadel, and I am paying for drinks. A bit of privacy is hardly an outrageous demand.

6. Crank up the Dave!

The fact that people still line up to cram dollar bills into the jukebox in order to program more Dave Matthews songs into the queue is staggering. Evidently, these people already own copies of every Dave album for their house, car, and office and are at a loss for other ways to spend their money.

5. Courtroom adjourned

Oh, overdressed lawyer guy, would it be so detrimental to your pick-up angle to remove your suit jacket? If it's eleven o'clock on Friday night, the proposition that your profession demands your top button remain securely fastened is dubious at best.

4. Ranch surcharge

I think we can agree that 75 cents for a paper cup of ranch dressing is excessive. Instead, consider charging a quarter for ketchup packets and rigging the salt and pepper shakers so that a dime must be inserted before they dispense.

3. Minnesota Fats

While your velvet-lined pool cue case is stunning, it doesn't belong in one-pool-table neighborhood pub. Now please take your case and transport your gilded, personalized cue to a pool hall and let someone else have a turn.

2. Plastic or plastic?

You just charged me four dollars for that microbrew. Please do not attempt to serve it to me in a two-cent plastic cup.

1. Chair-thieving chicks

No, we're not using that chair. My friend whom you just saw walk away from it five seconds ago left his jacket over the back to keep it warm for you, Princess. In fact, we got to this crowded establishment three hours ago just so we could save this very chair for you. Please take it. And do help yourself to that pack of cigarettes and some of these onion rings.