˗ˏˋOur Differences Sequelˊˎ˗

-36-

Devin

"Can I get a vodka soda, no fruit?"

I turned around to Benedict, who's been making the drinks for 3 hours straight while I take the orders. We'd switch out in an hour, which I personally wasn't looking forward to. It's all part of the pay, though.

I slid the sticky note full of scribbled down orders to him, and then took his finished drinks to the designated person. We had a smooth system, with zero errors. It made work fly by faster, thankfully.

Also tonight was Lana Del Rey night in the bar, which made this 8 hour shift torturous for me. I wanted to hijack the DJ stand and put on Lady Gaga so bad, but I'd get fired pretty quickly.

Whatever, though.
I just rolled my eyes and tried to tune out the music as best as I could, despite the screaming 22 year old girls.

"Vodka soda, no fruit." I set the drink down in front of the girl who had ordered a minute ago.

She smiled at me.
"You look familiar."

I hear that phrase constantly while working in a bar, and it pretty much holds no meaning to me anymore. Is it some weird conversation starter? Because 90% of the people who say that I look familiar have absolutely no idea who I am and have never seen me before in their life. It's like their weird, overused way of trying to get to know someone without actually asking that person about themselves.

"Yeah, I work at a bar." I replied dryly, while partly ignoring her to finish serving other people their drinks.

Unless service slowed down, I never really had time to chit chat with customers. Drinks were coming and going constantly, and I had to juggle payments too.

"No, seriously. Where do I know you from?" she stared me down, practically begging me to stop and talk to her.

I gave her a plain shrug and picked up the tips from 2 people who had just left, tossing them into our glass jar that gets divided between me and Benedict at the end of the night.

"Devin...." she repeated my first name over and over, trying to think of what my last name could possibly be.

My work name tag revealed my name, which I hated and wanted to rip off constantly. People always feel the need to say my name while I'm working.

"Thanks for the drink, Devin."

"How are you, Devin?"

"I'll take an apple-tini, easy on the tini, Devin."

It breaks a barrier that really doesn't need to be broken. Especially when we have people, specifically women, who go out of their way to request me at the bar just because they find me attractive.

They'll waste their entire night sitting at the counter, trying to get my attention, ordering drink after drink for no reason. It really bothered me, but I couldn't do anything about it.

The girl continued staring at me.
"You play soccer, don't you? Stanford?"

"Something like that."
I slid Benedict another order, as he finished making 3 vodka cranberries.