I’m not sure exactly where, but somewhere 30,000 feet in the air
over Nebraska, I decided to change career paths. So, for the past
couple of weeks, I have been in intense training. What kind of
training, you ask? Something between NASA space engineering and
bartending, in Salt Lake City, a place I have never been before. And
while I feel that most college students
develop a sense of cultural intelligence, you never really know
a place until you live there.
In Salt Lake you have to be a member of a bar to drink there. They even have
membership cards you have to show, along with two forms of identification and a
urine test, just to get in the front door. So what if you ever want to go bar
hopping or organize a pub crawl or even go to a different bar if one is super
lame? You have to tote around a file system of all your memberships, kind of
like
your mom’s coupon book.
So let’s say you’re tired and drained from work on a Friday night, and you
want a little release at Squatters Pub. Alright, grab your blue accordion coupon
book (flip flip flip)… that’s under S (flip flip flip)… cross reference Sports
Bar (flip flip flip)…. Ah, yes, here it is, my membership card, right between
Rudy’s Lounge and THIS IS BULLSHIT.
"My new younger friends believe that Salt Lake City is all
one giant ruse to get us into church."
Memberships to bars? What’s this
world coming to? You know they got the idea from grocery stores,
too. Let’s make them become a member to get 30 cents off milk! Let’s
make them become members at bars too and as a bonus we’ll forever
deplete happy hour from the community’s vocabulary by making it
illegal to discount liquor. Now all Utahans will have to carry
around one wallet for their grocery store cards, one wallet for
their bar memberships, and one for their credit cards. Christ! Just
stick a computer chip under my skin already and scan me wherever I
go. Anything as long as I don’t have to
carry a duffel bag as a purse.
So basically you don’t have to pay membership fees if you eat food. Which
apparently it’s required for all bars to have, and you have to order a certain
amount before ordering more beer. Well that’s just promoting obesity. In
Wisconsin no waiter has time to monitor whether you’ve eaten nine chicken wings
for every beer you drink. Probably because everyone in Wisconsin has consumed at
least three products that have been battered and deep fried since 8 that
morning.
Some of my new younger friends believe that Salt Lake City is all one giant
ruse to get us into church. It’s midnight and there’s a club with a line and the
bouncer says, “Come on in. No cover! No membership fees to out of towners!” You
step five feet in and get clubbed over the head. When you wake up an hour later
you’re dressed in a white polyester jumpsuit, bald, in handcuffs, getting
greeted by the new leader who’s wearing a yellow “Have a Nice Day” smiley face
on his polyester one-sie telling you, “Welcome to your new home. You’ll now be
known as number 42. When we’re not at mass, we count grains of sands. Get to
work!”
Whatever, it sounds
better than membership fees at this point.
