grievance: asking for "no" or "little" ice

As you may know from one of my earlier blogs ("grievance: bar etiquette [silly cocktails]"), I spend some of my weekend nights slingin' drinks behind a bar. And I've already reprimanded some people for ordering particular (embarrassing) drinks. However, I think an entirely different aspect of cocktail-ordering needs to be addressed...

I swear to GOD if you ask me for "no" or "very little" ice, I will take the 1-inch long baby knife on my wine key intended for cutting foil off of the tops of wine bottles and slit your piece-of-shit throat.

Maybe you don't understand. Bartenders pour as they pour. End of story. And I actually happen to have a pretty heavy hand because... Well, let's call a spade a spade, I'm an alcoholic myself. But asking for this limiting of ice makes me so irate that I actually will end up giving you less liquor than I would, were I not assaulted by such a blasphemous insult.

Would you like to know why this SO pisses off bartenders and why you ought not ask for this? Because it says, very implicitly, "I'm CHEAP. I want as much alcohol as I can possible acquire based on the size of that glass." How does that translate into bartender-ese? "I will not be tipping you." Hence, you will not be obtaining any extra liquor at ALL. Not to mention, it's kind of an insult to a bartender's capacity to do his/her job. It's not your place. And you're going to end up with less that way.

I almost become UNCOMFORTABLE when people do that because I'm embarrassed for such fucking parsimony.

New rule (to the tune of Bill Maher's awesomeness): accept what a bartender has to pour. You'll get fucked over and embarrassed if you request otherwise.

New rule: Not tipping? Not acceptable. Oh wait. That's kind of an old rule. Ugh.

-moon