The 16 People Every College-Bar Cocktail Waitress Knows Way Too Well

Working at a bar that caters to undergrads and football fans has it's definite pros and cons. You see the best and worst of people, but there are 16 people every single cocktail waitress could recognize from across any dimly lit, sticky-floored bar in this nation.

1. The "shocked at the price" kid.

Yes. 2 Shots of Jameson are 13 dollars during a football game. Yes, that's more expensive than a case of natty light. HERE'S AN IDEA, INSTEAD OF NOT TIPPING ME MAYBE DON'T ORDER SHOTS OF AN EXPENSIVE WHISKEY IN A COLLEGE BAR ON GAMEDAY IF YOU'RE 22 AND BROKE AS HELL.

2. The bitchy barely-21-year-old.

You know. The one who rolls their eyes when you card them because they turned 21 FOUR WHOLE MONTHS AGO.

3. The "how cute am I" 19 year old.

You're very cute. I'm still not going to serve you though.

4. The "doesn't realize he's way too old to be here" guy.

This guy usually comes to the bar with his younger cousin or nephew, and you can tell by the way the other members of his group side-eye him when he makes loud references to shows that haven’t been on tv since they were in grade school, that they are PERFECTLY aware that at 35, he is a little past his "getting drunk on Thursday with a bunch of college Freshmen" prime. You do you, fun uncle, but don’t you dare try to impress the youths by offering to motorboat my titties.

5. The "I'm way too old to be here" guy.

Maybe he's an older brother or a co-worker. Maybe he just didn't know what he was getting into. But now he's watching a bunch of kids with Xs on their hands sneak swigs of keystone light and feeling really weird about himself. He wants to talk to you about your grad school plans or tell you about the non-profit he volunteers with, and you let him, because his pain is real to you. You don’t really want to be surrounded by these people either.

6. The amateur.

People often use college as a time to experiment and test their limits. Unfortunately, that last vegas bomb that Mr. Adventurous over there just took pushed him way outside those limits, and now you have to deal with what is essentially a 150 pound infant as well as the pitcher of beer he just puked into and the french fries he’s trying to eat off of the floor.

7. The flirty boyfriend.

He's out with his girlfriend and yet still decides to stare very obviously at your boobs and make innuendos that aren’t subtle even by drunk-guy standards. The only thing worse than how awkward the innuendos make you feel is the way his girlfriend is staring at you like she wants to rip your still beating heart out of your chest. You want to scream I DON’T WANT THIS, TRUST ME, but instead you take their order and make the door guy take it to their table. Or something.

8. The crying drunk girl.

Sometimes with a friend, sometimes not, the crying drunk girl is a staple in any college bar. She could be crying because of a mean boy, or a mean girl, or a bad grade and she often doesn’t even really know why she’s crying, it’s just that she had four Red’s and now everything just FEELS so hard. Be a good person, check to make sure she’s okay and then get her a water

and a cab home.

9. The very apologetic drunk guy.

This is the male equivalent of the crying drunk girl. Sometimes he starts apologizing to you for a reason: he bumped into you, he thought you were someone you weren’t, he forgot to give you your pen back. A lot of the time, however, you have no idea what he’s sorry for and you’re pretty sure he doesn’t know either. He’s just really, really, really sorry and wants to make sure you know it.

10. The girl whose friends all hate her.

You have to ASSUME that that’s what’s going on in her life, because you literally have no other explanation as to why someone who is as drunk as this girl is is all alone at a bar. You usually find her asleep under a sink in the bathroom, are informed of her presence by the group of strangers whose table she just vomited on, or have to ask her to move because she’s clinging to the waitress station like it’s the last solid thing in the world. After pulling her dress down so the world can no longer see her baby door, you call all the people she’s texted most recently to try to find someone to come help get her home while she fades in and out of consciousness. Nobody answers, so you call her a cab and have the bouncers help her out to it.

11. The Haggler.

This guy is trying to buy three shots of tequila, but seems to think it’s a bookshelf off of craigslist. He doesn’t seem to get that you are not going to give him a two for one deal no matter how hard he bats those eyelashes. Plus, anyone who wants to argue about $4 shots is not going to tip well AND YOU KNOW THAT.

12. The “dads out with daughters” group.

It’s father-daughter weekend for the sororities and there are a bunch of dads out with their little baby princesses. You’re not sure why these girls chose to bring their dads to a bar that has sticky floors and a million hammered 20 year old dudes with raging hormones, but they did, and now you have to bring Tanqueray and tonics to men who are desperately trying to figure out both where they went wrong as fathers and how they are going to keep from murdering all the boys who keep looking at their precious babies. They are mad at the world, and themselves, and they take it out on you. 10% is not a good tip, Dad.

13. The “dads out with sons” group

It’s father-son week, and there are a bunch of men out with their college-aged progeny. Unlike the miserable “dads with daughters” these men are definitely enjoying the scenery, the atmosphere, and the feeling that they are showing their sons the ropes of drunken debauchery. You inevitably get a creepy Dad or two, but the fact that they all seem to want to outdo each other in numbers of shots ordered and how much they tip more than makes up for it.

14. The regular who openly wants to date you.

He wants to date you and he must really thrive on rejection because no matter how many times you politely decline his advances, he’s back the next weekend, drunkenly professing his desire to stick it in or whatever.

15. The regular who secretly wants to date you.

He’s never told you he wants to date you, but you can tell that he does by the way that he always seems to come into the bar while you’re working and the way he always tips north of 50%.

16. The non-tipper.

This person can be any gender, race, age or socioeconomic class, but they all have one uniting trait… They are all assholes. The absolute worst type of person, they make you struggle through throngs of inebriates to bring them trays of $3 shots and bombs and then, come close-out time, they draw a line through the sacred blank space meant for the tip. There’s a special type of hell for that type of person, a hell where they’re starving and waiting for their food but it never comes.