A Pub Conversation to Remember

A while ago I sat at the bar of a pub I'll leave unnamed, and listened unintentionally to the bar staff talk about stuff behind the scenes, things patrons don't necessarily hear everyday. I'm not sure why the bar staff continued discussing the negative aspects of their employment, as I was sitting three stools away with my notebook open while nursing a nice cold pint.

During their conversation I starting thinking about other conversations that I've overheard at various times during my frequent pub visits, and let me tell you, there are some crazy ones. But this one takes the cake.

The above mentioned conversation at the Toronto pub I'll leave unnamed, was funny and disturbing. Disturbing came first, then the funny. The two females were deep in conversation, sharing their encounters with the rats in the basement when they were wrestling with the full kegs. This news immediately brought my feet from the floor to bottom rack of the stool and had me scanning the entire room for any movement of the hairy rodents. This is not something you want to hear anywhere and they kept going on and on.

After they finished their story my pint class was suddenly empty and I was asking for the cheque. It was then that an older gentleman walked in from the street dressed in sweatpants, velco-hole filled shoes and the tightest white t-shirt. He proceeded straight to the bar. I knew that I would miss a great encounter, so I held off on paying the bill and sat back on the bar stool. The man called the two female bar staff to his end of the bar and pulled out a business card. The look on the faces of the two females was priceless. The one female threw the card back in the face of the rough looking fellow and told him to get out of the pub. He turned around and stopped, looked back and said "just consider it" and he walked out. The girls looked my way and asked "do we look like strippers?" To which I replied "uhhhh, I don't know. Why?" Turns out the man was walking from pub to pub, restaurant to restaurant handing out business cards as a recruitment process for one of Toronto's seediest strip joints.

So there you have it - rats and strippers all within a half hour visit and only in a pub.