Throwing a Few Back(s)

A few months back, Guiseppe asked me if I wanted to work a holiday party with him as a bartender.  He runs a local country club that caters a party for a wealthy construction company owner every year.  There were four of us total... he and a girl did all the food setup and one of the chefs came and cooked the food in their huge kitchen in the house and then me, who set up and manned the bar.  The house was a renovated warehouse and was beautifully done, except that the layout provided many bottlenecks for people to, of course, congregate and clog the flow.  The bar was set up in a corner of the one room, right in a doorway... and most of my ice, pop, beer, wine and champagne was across the house on an outside porch, which made running to get it when needed virtually impossible with the crowd of (stupid) people who couldn't take a hint to move.  Other people were crowded into the kitchen area, where the three other people were trying to cook and prepare.  It's been a while since I've done a bartending shift of standing on my feet, and with having to lug all the chafing dishes, etc in for set up and back out for clean up, then getting back to the country club and unloading and then having to scrape all the dirty pots and dishes to clean them, my legs and back were killing me by 1 a.m. when we finished.  I was a sweaty, filthy mess by the end, and stuffing my fat ass into dress pants that I haven't worn in years and a shirt and vest that didn't quite fit, I felt like a stuffed pig.  I definitely need to lose weight (or buy bigger clothes).  $300 earned and 9 hours later, I question whether it was worth it all.

After sleeping until 11, I'm meeting with my friend Mike.  He wanted to take a trip and had no one to go with that could get the time off, so I told him I would.  Originally thinking about Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, we are now looking at Cancun, which offers more to do than just sit by a pool or on the beach for 8 hours a day, which I get antsy doing.  I've been there 3 times (last time was in 1999) so I'm excited to go back.  The water is like bath water, the beaches are white, the weather is spectacular and it's very Americanized... they have McDonald's and TGI Fridays, etc.  In Punta Cana, you would be limited to your resort and it's a lot more remote.  The whole trip (hotel, air fare, taxes, transfers and tips (and possibly food and drink)) will cost around $600.  We're looking at the end of February before I go back to work mid-March.