Up in the Air: Deep Thoughts from the Boom Boom Room

So last night I was scheduled to work down in the Boom Boom Room at the Brooksider. I was pretty excited to go to work last night. For one, Thursday nights are huge at the BKS - don't asky me why, but they're almost as good as Saturday nights, while Fridays are pretty dead. For two, I don't have to go in until 10pm, all I do is stand behind the bar (no food service, no pretending like I care about a customer's stupid story or stupid food allergies.... which, PS, I'm pretty sure a lot of people say they're allergic to things just to ensure that it doesn't come out on their plate... I mean really, who is allergic to cucumbers???) Anyway, oh yeah, other reasons I love shifts in the Boom Boom Room: It's the shortest possible shift, it goes by incredibly fast, it's fairly fast paced and if it's not there's always plenty of entertainment to watch on the dance floor, and you still make good money (great money if you calculate it hourly).

It was a strange night from the start. If you've been to the lovely Brooksider recently, unless you were blacked out you noticed that there have been some major renovations going on. Most of these have taken place upstairs in the main bar area, but even the BBR feels different. There are now 2 staircases that lead downstairs, and coolers/wells/sinks behind the bar have been ripped out/moved/replaced/reinstalled, etc. So it felt kinda weird from the beginning. Cue music, and cue my deep thoughts....

1) The first guy who comes down the stairs arrives, looks around, see no one, and right on cue, says "Hey! Where is everybody? I thought this was supposed to be the Boom Boom Room. You should get more people down here.... blah, blah, blah." Yes dummy, it is the BBR, but by virtue of being the first person, no one else is down here yet! Don't ask me why, but this questions, which is inevitably asked every single night, is SUPER irritating. Chad (who I worked w/last night, has worked at BKS for 7 yrs, and is ridiculously funny) hates this part of the night so much he refuses to engage in eye contact with (and sometimes hides from) the first person down the stairs, no matter who it is.

2) White girls cannot dance. Ballet/jazz/studio dance, yes. Dance floor, pop/R&B/rap dance, no way. Again, inevitably the first group of drunk white girls to enter the BBR think that because it's relatively empty, they have full reign over the dance floor.... it makes me sad for my race. It's like watching Jerry Springer: so pathetic and sad, but you cannot tear your eyes away. What makes me even sadder is when I watch these girls and realize that a particular move looks familiar, because I have done it before.

When your brain is under the influence of alcohol, you think you look like you have rhythm and look sexy. In fact, you look like my puggle Wrigley when she stands on her hind paws and humps our lab's leg. But wobbly. And in heels. Throw in a few hair flips and it's a nightmare. Stop there?? Oh, no. The Brooksider has to go and add a giant fan. Girls, you are not in a music video, you did not achieve the slightly wind-blown look, you do not look pretty with your hair blowing all over your sweaty face, and you absolutely do not look sexy when you drop it low and body roll against the fan. STOP IT NOW! And if you insist on dancing provacatively, at least wait til after midnight when everyone else has had a chance to consume significant amounts of alcohol.

3) Liquor's expensive -- deal with it. If you want it cheap, buy it yourself and drink it at home. What's more expensive than liquor?? Red Bull. Don't get mad at me. Call your local Red Bull representative and complain.

4) The BKS has $1 draws on Thursday nights (which is exactly why 95% of the people present have showed up). Not $1 domestics, but "$1 Draws." SPOILER ALERT: it's Natty Lite. We take all the domestic beers off tap and hook Natty kegs up those taps, because otherwise, if we used only one tap for Natty, it would take us forever to fill your 9-beer drink orders and we would constantly be changing the keg, meaning the tap would be out of service even longer. You came for dollar draws, don't get mad when you get a draw that's only worth a dollar. If you really want a Bud Light, buy a bottle.

5) Due to dollar draw night (see above), we strictly enforce our posted $10 credit card minimum. If you only want one beer, don't start a tab. It is not a difficult concept.

6) There’s a certain kind of reverse law-of-the-jungle that rules in the Boom Boom Room. The BBR is not a place for casual relaxing, political discussion, or getting to know someone of the opposite sex. It is a primal breeding ground, where young adults (and unfortunately, some middle-aged ones as well) come to hunt for a temporary mate, prowling the dance floor in search of prey to take home for the night. This is not always a bad thing, as there are rare exceptions that occassionally result in procreation and even life-long mating.

Exhibit A

With the aide of alcohol, the attractive fit girls have all been claimed by about 1am, and frequently already scooped up and taken home, as their tiny little bodies cannot handle the vast amounts of alcohol that their stalkers have poured down their throats. From 1am – 3am is when the big girls feast on the leftover meat. By this time, the males who were unsuccessful in their original hunt have drowned their sorrows in significant amounts of liquor, and have succumbed to a condition commonly known in the jungle as Beer Goggles. The mixture of all these factors results in serious, indecent, R-rated PDA. These guys (some of whom I have gone/go to school with, worked with, partied with, dated…) are gobbled up like turkey on Thanksgiving.