The Drunk Girl At The Bar

Last night, D and I went to a CD-release show at a bar downtown. It was fun -- but bizarre for several different reasons. The band releasing the CD is called Can't Quite Get Right, and one of my brother's oldest friends is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist. So we've met everyone in the band (I think, it's hard to keep track of those musician types sometimes), and there were people there we wanted to see and catch up with.

We leave at right around nine and the first bizarre thing happens: It is dumping snow outside. It's not a blizzard; there's no real wind. It's just snowing, hard, with no warnings or indications. And most of it is melting, because yesterday was 60 degrees Fahrenheit and today it's 50, so it was just this really strange, freak thing in the middle of what has been an unseasonably warm and dry February in Colorado. We troop back inside to get coats and then re-leave the house. (Almost all the snow is already gone today, and it's 3:15 p.m. Freaky Colorado weather!)

The bar where this release was being held is called Owsley's Golden Road; it's owned by these brothers who also own several other hippie-themed bars in Denver. This is the only one I hadn't been to yet (and the newest one), so that was exciting. We got inside and started talking to people, doing the usual bar thing (I drank vodka and diet soda because they didn't have any wine -- boo! -- and D had an energy drink). Eventually the band we came to see gets onstage, and we're watching them, standing by this table, making each other laugh, and a girl who needs to get to the other side of the room brushes past me. It was a tight squeeze, and she said, "Excuse me," and I said, "You're fine." (As in "it's okay," not "you're hot.") And another girl sees and hears this and says, jokingly (and drunkly), "Don't excuse her! She did it on purpose!" Or something to that effect.

So I turn and look at the new girl, and we look at each other for a minute, and she looks really, really familiar. I thought at first it was one of my brother's friends, Emily, whom I just saw again for the first time in years recently when my brother brought her over to my house, because she looked a lot like Emily. She looks at me and says, "I know you. Where do I know you from?" And I said, "Uh ... you were over at my house a few days ago? Emily?" And she says, "No. But I know I know you." And I am also thinking she looks really familiar, even though she's not Emily. So I ask her if she knows anyone in the band. She says she does not. She asks me if I know a few random people who are there that night, but I don't know any of them. I'm starting to wonder if maybe both she (and I) are completely imagining that we know each other, and I was ready to shrug it off, but she was being really persistent. Finally she says, "I work for Chili's." I don't remember what store she was at, and I know she never worked at any of the stores I've worked at (at least not when I was working there), but I know this has to be it.

Then I've got it. I ask her if she had to go to the Serve Safe training about a month ago. Everyone who works behind the bar -- I think, in the cocktail area is included, too -- has to have one of these certifications. It's a four- or five-hour class that teaches you about the human response to alcohol, the variation in how different people metabolize it, how to recognize signs of drunkenness, how to handle a situation of intoxication, etc. First she says, "No." Then she says, "The alcohol thing? Yeah! You work at Chili's Conifer!"

"Not anymore."

And, as it turns out, the friend who brushed against me also works for Chili's. And, as everyone knows, Damon also works for Chili's. So the four of us stand around for a good fifteen minutes, talking about Chili's. Very random. As it turns out, the girl I knew from Serve Safe is pretty torn down -- slurring, repeating herself, that kind of thing. Ironic, isn't it? Her friend wasn't drinking, though, so she obviously had a ride home. (Although, as anyone who has taken the course will know, people with designated drivers are nevertheless not allowed to drink all they want.) She eventually says she's going to the bar and asks me if I want a drink, and I say no, I'd had a drink earlier and was fine. And she asks if "my friend" wants a drink, and I say no, he doesn't drink. She runs off to the bathroom and then the bar, and after a few minutes her friend asks where she went, and I tell her, and she says something along the lines of, "That's not good," and it was nice to meet us, and disappears.

We left shortly afterward because it was getting late and we have curfews. I just thought it was so totally random to run into two strangers who work for the same company we currently (or once) work(ed) for -- and for everyone to figure out the connection.