This is a true account of what occurred the night of August 29th. Some names have been changed, but the events are true!
It was an awesome night as most wednesday nights tend to be at the Encore. Mellow, full of the usual suspects of regulars. It’s like a little party and I get paid to host it.

So everything was going as smooth as it could. Enter the major players of this drama:

Friend X, an expert bartender of several SF venues came to hangout and visit. Cool guy. He can hold his liquor, but that night he managed to get himself plastered.

Stinky H, a young guy who has been hanging around the bar the last few weeks. And no, I’m not being mean… the guy usually has a powerful stench with roughly a 6 foot radius. Funny? Yes, except when he is standing near you. In addition to being high most of the time, he apparently is also a bisexual-hustler using his charms to score free beers and cigarettes. Bar staff have seen him take men and women home with him at closing time. If you like the stinky, he is your man. (Side-note: he was asked by bar management to take a shower or never come back again. Cleanliness lasted 2 days and the malodorous vapors returned.)

Associate Y. Cool guy who is only a minor player in our little drama. (Wait for it…)

Associate Z. He had the night off and and I blame him for being the “instigator” that night.

We hit the 1 am on the clock and aside from about 5 of our staff either working or hanging out, we were down to about 13 customers of which one was a woman. Stinky H had gone around the room and made out with at least 9 of them. I really don’t care about whatever someone’s sexual preferences are, but have some self-respect man! You don’t need to go around the room behaving like a slut! And as for the customers he was all over, most of them didn’t seem to mind his foul stench. How drunk do you have to be to get turned on by monster-caliber body odor?

Around this time Friend X says that he is super drunk and super hungry. He didn’t drive and I offered to drop him off at a 24 hour diner or his friends place but then I would have to go, on account of my new job and would I had to be in the office early.

Let’s get back to Stinky H. The guy can never just walk past you. He will insist on shaking hands, giving high-fives or worse, hugs.
Sadly i was assaulted by several hug attempts throughout the night. So in the course of 2 hours you will unfortunately be in contact with him an average of 20 times. No, I’m not exaggerating.

It’s finally 2am, and we quickly get everyone out of the bar except for a few bar staff, like my pal Brent, Associate Z, and Friend X.
Seemed easy. 20 minutes of relaxed cleaning up – BUT NO…
Associate Z lets Stinky H hangout with him while we are cleaning up the place. Suddenly Friend X walks up to me with a look a weird look on his face almost like he’s experiencing paranoia.
He says, “Dude, I can’t stay indoors anymore. I HAVE to go outside.” At this point I don’t know if I should laugh or not. “X, if you wait like 15 more minutes I’ll drive you to the restaurant. You drank so much, you should eat something.” “No Sid, I CAN NOT stay indoors. I’m going to walk up Geary. Call me when you’re done and I’ll tell you where to pick me up from.” A few minutes later I locked the gate behind him. “X, I’ll call you as soon as I get out of here.”

15 mintues later I’ve finished all of my clean up duties, counted out my tips, and was sitting at the bar with Brent enjoyed a tall glass of ginger ale. Stinky H and Associate Z come walking in from the back parking lot and head past me to sit at the far side of the bar. Stink H suddenly turns around and lurches towards me with arms open wide. “Sid, you’re my favorite KJ here…blah blah blah, blah, blah, blah, come and give me a hug.”

Let’s press pause here for a moment shall we? over the course of my shift Stinky H came and tried to give me roughly 8 hugs per hour. I stuck out my left arm and shoved Stinky H back about a foot from me and started yelling, “Man, what the hell is your problem?! You gave me 50 fucking hugs tonight! Why the hell do you need to give me 51?!” Let’s just say Stinky H didn’t take it well. He looked like he was gonna cry and kept saying “Are you mad at me? Please don’t be mad at me… you don’t like me?” The truth is no, I don’t like him. But I actually turned to him and said “Stinky H, you’re a nice guy, I just don’t understand why you have to give me 50 hugs? I don’t feel the need to be touched by every customer in here ok?” It didn’t matter. Stinky H jumped up and stormed out of the place.

Once that little episode was over, we soon found out that
Associate Y had passed out on the dance floor by the microphones. It took about 15 minutes to get him to wake up and go and sleep in his car. Great. By the time we finally walk out of the bar it is close to 3:15am. I start the drive home and realize I need to find Friend X. So I call his cellphone repeatedly and cruise up and down Geary till I find him. I get him in the car.
I then spend almost 30 minutes driving him back and forth till he gives me the right directions. I got home and in bed at 4am. I think I got maybe 4 and a half hours of sleep before I had to get up for work.

After all this, I’m not quite sure what I’ve learned from that night.
I’ve learned if that 4 and a half hours of sleep makes me really cranky! Maybe, I’ve learned to be polite but firm with people who are annoying at the bar, and from now on stop annoying behavior as soon as it starts. Perhaps don’t be a humanitarian and help a drunk acquaintance when he decides to drunk-walk across the city at 3am.