Before I go any further about my Beer Slinging, Drunk wrangling, money earning Oktoberfest experiences I would like to ask a question…
Why is Oktoberfest in September? I know there’s a reason, and I’m almost positive I’ve been explained that reason several times, BUT I still think it’s pretty retarded. Just change the name to Septemberfest, or just have it in October(notice how unlike the Nazis we use Cs instead of Ks).
Anyway…So for a couple of years I used to work with a hotel selling beer at their booth during Oktoberfest. For the sake of legality, as well as the rules I broke let’s call this place the Brown Gaza (that sounds kind of racist). So me and the ragtag crew of the Brown Gaza, a mix of managers and maids and whoever else wanted $10 an hour, and a 16 hour day, made our way on the busses from the hotel to the Addison fairgrounds. Never was there a more amazing sight beheld. Beer everywhere. Where there wasn’t beer there was sausage. Soooo much sausage. No item on the menu didn’t have some kind of meat. So my first year working, I was a vegetarian. I was a college freshman with dreams of fighting the man and changing the world. On my first break I was hungry from standing for eight hours and slashing beer to everybody who had tickets for them(because as opposed to paying cash, they needed to buy tickets which could be traded for beer, food, and whatever else they had). So I took my few tickets and tried to find something without meat. It was like trying to find cocaine in Lindsey Lohan’s limo. Even though it was wiped/snorted clean, I knew I could find something. In the farthest corner I found a tiny little booth, and in that booth they were selling German style potatoes. I bought it and devoured it like David Carradine at an illegal Thai child prostitute buffet. Just as I went to throw away the plate I saw them making the dish I had just eaten, sprinkling tiny crumbles of sausage in as they stirred this giant pan of potatoes and onions. I stopped being a vegetarian that moment and decided to try some bratwurst, before my next shift began.
One of the rules for working with the Brown Gaza was that we can’t have a tip jar, and we can only take tickets for beer/wine, BUT we could accept tips. Yes they sold wine, and for all you wine snobs, of course it was a Riesling (if you listen really close you can here pretentious laughter and clapping from the people who understood that). How was I going to make tips? I would have to take advantage of the average drunken idiot and use the one thing they all love…pop culture quotes and references. Sometimes I would quote Anchorman, or Old School, whatever Will Ferrell movie was plaguing the nation that year. But my most successful day came in the form a mustached man from the Russian satellite state of Kazakhstan. For the course of one day I managed to serve beer with a pretty dead on impersonation of the famous Sacha Barron Cohen character, Borat. I riddled the beer with phrases such as “I like you, you like me”, “Sexy time”, and “Jagshemash.” I guess case studies are correct because douches and tools aged 21-35 loved me, and the random single dollar bills poured in. I made about 60 dollars in nothing but singles.
My last, and perhaps favorite moment of Oktoberfest really shouldn’t be shared. In fact if the good people of the Brown Gaza Hotel ever found out, I probably wouldn’t be able to work Oktoberfest ever again. It was the last day, a good Sunday, and not too many people were showing. I guess they were praying instead of drinking, which is why you don’t see many German Catholics because the other Catholics have that down to an art form. I’m talking to you Mexico, Italy, and most of all, Ireland. Anywho, so the day was slow, when me and my booth decide lets break the rules a little, fudge the books, and have ourselves a drink two. Two hours and unlimited beer later it was time to go. Shit. I wanted to stay. I would have slept there if they wouldn’t take the taps with them. There is all this leftover wine, and beer steins and random shit. All they are gonna d is take it back to the hotel, and sell it overpriced, or throw it away. Fuck that. Me and Manuel get some extra bags and we start to divide the good between us, and the other people working the booth, including but not limited to…
Todd- The manager who gloats about the chick he’s sleeping with all time.
Wendy- Todd’s wife, who he was not sleeping with, which she defiantly mentioned.
Jorje- The tattooed Mexican gangster who, with the help of Texas workforce, is a janitor at the hotel.
Annie- The 78 year old part time maid, part time laundry woman who is either cursing like a sailor, or praising Jesus’ name.
So needless today we all were drunk, splitting stolen goods, not telling anybody else a damn thing. Maybe it was the booze, maybe it was the free things nobody knew about, maybe it was the tips, but I have truly come to love Oktoberfest, even if it is a Nazi holiday.
