Day 24 - A New Brew

It has been 12 days since my last game that I worked at as beer man.

This week I'm currently in between contract jobs, so beer man is the only job for this week...meaning, the days are free to do fun stuff...like going for a bike ride with no shirt on in Creve Coeur Park and burn my back...fun stuff...actually very relaxing, so no complaints here.

Tonight was a night that I can only describe it as being like a season premiere of a tv show....like Scrubs, E.R. or Grey's Anatomy...there were new guys there tonight...about 6 of them...and it was like the new interns that show up on the season premiere.

All of the regulars were talking and catching up with each other since the last home-stand. Then the newbies showed up...a few of them had no clue on what to do and I remembered back to my first day and how lost I was.

Of course I did a JD monologue in my head as I saw all of the newbies file into Commissary 240.

One of them asked our Commissary manager if she thought he had too much ice in his tub. He then looked at me after she responded and asked me the same question...I looked in his tub which he had his case of beer filled to the top with ice and his bottles of water and soda with ice all around them filled to the top of his tub...I looked up at him and said, "it's not a matter of if it's too much ice, it's a matter of if you can carry it?" Our Commissary manager laughed and said that was exactly what she asked him. He went out about 20 minutes before the first pitch and was back before the game started to dump out a bit of his ice.

Several of us regulars were frustrated because the more guys in our commissary, the less money everyone else makes. It's always nice to have fresh blood though...sometimes...

Tonight's game was fricken hot...and that's not even beginning to describe how much I sweated...I'll spare you the details.

A few times I found myself getting light headed and almost dizzy...so I stopped at the top of a section and drank my water and put a few ice cubes in my hat and down the back of my shirt. And it was only 90! I can't imagine how bad it'll be through July...I'm sure it'd been different too if I was able to sell more than 2 cases of beer. Very slow night tonight.

I'm just gonna go ahead and say that the heat caused everyone to have a bad attitude, because I can't think of any other reason...I'm talking about the fans...

I witnessed a couple get into a fight...they got up and walked to the top of the section and kept going back and forth...not very loud at all though...very intense and just between the two of them...but as a beer man, I was waiting for people to move so I could walk down a section and was overhearing the whole thing...then they decided to walk into Red Bird Club to finish it at a table over a beer...I like to think of it as a 'nothing fight'...thank you Dane Cook!

Another lady decided to have a few choice words towards me because I carded her friend sitting next to her. She couldn't understand why I carded someone who was 7 years past their 21st b-day...I told her I card anyone who looked under 30 and her and her friend took offense to that...I heard the f-bomb dropped a few times after I made the sale...I decided that if she stopped me for another beer later on that I would just tell her she looked damn old and still card bisnitch.

It was a slow night of sales over all...back in the Commissary after last call, the newbies were asking if tonight was a normal night and how much everyone sells on a typical night. One guy who stood in front of me in the line to check out had been retired and just wanted something to do and said he had no clue it was this hard of work to sell beer.

Another newbie behind me, who had only sold one case of beer, asked me several questions about my experiences working there...I explained that tonight was my first night and I sold 5 cases...the look on his face was priceless! I laughed a minute later and told him the truth, that this was my first year and it only gets easier as you go.

Looking forward to tomorrow night's game and figuring out how to further market stlbeerman.com

Totals thus far:
33 Bottles of Water
35 Bags of Cracker Jacks
96 Bags of Peanuts
1312 Bottles of Beer