the old short shrift

I went to the bar in the building where I work on monday to celebrate

There was a work party somewhere on the other edge of town which I had decided not to attend. The reason for this was simple, I don't get along with the people I work with, there is no kindred spirit among the 10 or so people I've spoken to and the thought of getting wasted with them made me think I might do something that would label me as the 'guy who did that thing' for the rest of my working career at this place... not so much that I would care what they think, but that it would throw off my current modus operandi at work which is to be as unobtrusive as possible... so far I think I'm known as the guy who leaves the room to get water a lot, which is where I want to be... I should add that lately I've been getting coffee...


now I've met what I feel like are more than enough kindred spirits in my life, a good 3 or 4 that I would list off hand, the take a bullet for types, but that's more a dramatic flair and sense of purposelessness rearing it's head.. let's say the convince the gunman that the cash is enough types... anyway... so I didn't expect anything more from a job in edmonton with a bunch of video game nerds like myself...


So I went to the bar and had a sandwich and three pints and it came up to 19.85... I was feeling good, I had been working on a drawing of Bolzano for Mark for a couple of hours while listening to the habs game, habs won, and I also just heard about some more illustration work to do with indyish.com that is gonna be easy and a chance to use the wacom, so I was in the mood to give the local beauty working as my waitress a nice tip, 5 dollars worth of nice tip, this proved to be a mistake... I have 40 bucks, two twenties, and I give her one twenty and ask for change, while holding the other 20. She gives me 3 five dollar bills and then starts fishing around in her change purse thingy, I say nah don't worry about it and hand her the other 20.

So I sit there and put the placemat drawing into my bag and am putting on my scarf (it is snowing in edmonton these days) when little miss waitress comes back with a dumb look on her face, she now appears to me as someone who is drinking away a certain amount of pain, all the while trying to serve a bar that was pretty busy for a monday night... (oilers game and monday night football)...

She claims I gave her a twenty and she gave me 15 back and where is the rest of her money, she only has one twenty on her person she claims and therefore i must have been trying to scam her, I protest, explaining that I have no twenty on me, I double check my breast pocket and yes, the 40 bucks is gone and 15 remains... by her logic she must be trying to scam me, I imply this without saying so... I tell her "Well check again, I'm sorry but I'm not paying you twice" and she kind of resigns, and moves back to her cash, I look around the table and take my time leaving, like a true scam artist would I guess? She shoots me a withering gaze... She's pretty, but pretty boring looking, cut and pastey, and she's drunk and can't manage her purse... I'm drunk too but walk out of there still happy... See either way I have some advantage over the situation, either I am the expert con artist and short grift man I used to admire so much in my late teens, or she is wrong... and I'm listening to a soul mix that I'm almost done making, I walked home, got some wine and played warcraft...

Oh the other thing is that now I have a reason not to go back, either they blacklisted me or I blacklisted them, I'm just glad to know where I stand vis a vis overpriced booze and a crummy sandwich..