My first day behind the bar at the Green Iguana

went fine. At the end of the shift, I scrawled in permanent marker on a dollar bill and staple-gunned it to the wall, which is something hundreds of other folks at the restaurant have done before me. Usually to mark an incredible night out. In addition to dollar bills, we have a quote attributed to Ernest Hemingway painted over one section of the wall: "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. It'll teach you to keep your mouth shut." I put my dollar next to Hemingway's name, that being the only part of the wall that held any interest for me.

So naturally I got made fun of for holding my first tip in such esteem, but other than that the shift went smoothly. My months at a service bar were ample preparation for getting the servers the drinks they rang in, usually before they were ready for them. The exception to that statement would be Chris, who had to ring in a pair of rum runners...

The delay wasn't due to my not knowing how to make a rum runner. Rather, it's that there's a lot of random stuff in a rum runner (two kinds of rum, blackberry brandy, banana liqueur...). And rum runners just aren't as popular as, say, a margarita, on whose account we keep triple sec and lime juice and tequila all grouped together in the speed well. So I had to go wandering.

And wandering I went, making both rum runners, a splash of each ingredient as I located it. By the time I got to the grenadine, Chris was at the bar, and said, LOUDLY, "Geez, Katie, you work slower than my grandmother fucks!"

I thought an assertion like that would throw me off for the rest of the day, but eight or ten minutes later Chris had to appear at the bar again, slightly abashed. "I need another one of those world famous Katie Benjamin rum runners."

"Too right, you do."