#tapster

[starlit-ash]

A couple of self indulgent OC stuff since today is technically my Prospitian’s birthday and I love my boy -wheeeze-

[outthesky]

I just want to share my first story with a horrible coworker.

Let’s call him Steve. Steve and I had the first shift together a few weeks ago. He was the tapster, I was the cashier. It was a place where we mostly sell beer. We are both a team and share our tips together which means he should also do his part in getting some cash.

When he found out that I never did drugs he immedaitely started to look down on me and bragged about how he had to go to the hospital every two weeks because he had a gastritis. Which was the result of him partying because alcohol is too lame.

Anyways, working with him really put me in a bad mood. He wouldn’t talk or anything to the customers, not even giving them the beer. He just handed it to me and I had to do it. Most tapsters are able to at least smile at the customers. Then he would complain about how they don’t give enough tips even though in my opinion it was pretty good especially since he was not helping at all. (You get much better tips if the people see a great team, two people having fun working together etc...)

It was a slow day but if a customer came, he would only drink his softdrinks with a straw and then be annoyed with him for asking a beer. By that time I usually handled all the cash and maybe even softdrinks already and tapping beer doesn’t take long. But he was annoyed at me for wanting him to work and giving the customers what they paid for.

Anyways, I never worked with him again but yesterday he was having a shift at the same time as me. Just different partner. I was having fun with my partner and we were joking around. Steve had a cashier who was famous for receiving a lot of tips because she would flirt, joke around and use all her make up skills on the customers. She is cool but I don’t care as much about the tips as her and many people think like me. It is not a job to get rich.

Steve probably thought they were much better than us and he purposely showed off how he had more fun with her than me. He would keep saying I shouldn’t take another 30min break which I never did. When I was once leaving my register to drain the juice from my lemons (they were already sliced and just swimming) he just said “We are not supposed to leave our register! First, you complain about us doing it and now you are doing it yourself.” It was shortly before we closed, there was no one coming, it took me twenty seconds and I never complaint about anything! I didn’t talk to him at all until he started to make those comments and throw them at me.

Even then I mostly ignored it. Though, when he came over and said “Look I got something for your tip jar” and put a tampon inside it was enough. I asked him if he thought this was funny in the least annoyed voice (which was so hard by that time) and he finally let me go. One last blow was when we had to clean up. There are bascially three areas that have to be done and he said “I’ll clean the beer pump because she wants to do it”. I don’t even care what I clean though I enjoy that area the most, but at this point I just wanted to go home.

[starlit-ash]

Drew my fanapace and I’m really happy with how the whole thing turned out :”)

[starlit-ash]

Playing with colour again with my oc

[starlit-ash]

hhhhhhhhh h h

[thedaveandkimmershow]

Part 1

Next Wednesday's our last day living on Cap Hill. I looked it up yesterday and it turns out we've been here since the end of April 2019. Given the timing, this is basically where we chose to ride out the pandemic.

Well, not chose. It's just how the timing worked out.

Now, we never ever said to ourselves "you know, some day we should live on Cap Hill". Nope. We never said that.

So how... did we end up living here?

Well, the first thing to know's that we never meant to live here. Definitely we never meant to stay here. It's just that we guaranteed the lease, paid the deposit on Linzy's apartment and, when she moved out early in favor of a better location and price relative to her school, we didn't want to lose our deposit so we decided to move in for the few months left on the lease. No sweat.

What happened, though, is that old saying: Location, Location, Location. As in the apartment's perfectly located, it's central to our professional work. Well... it's central to my work. For nine months it was also central to Kimmer's work. Definitely it was closer. Like fifteen minutes close as opposed to an hour or more.

Seriously. Or more.

So when the lease was up, we took over the apartment and were now proper residents of Cap Hill.

By the time the lockdowns happened early the following year, 2020, Kimmer was working from the apartment doing the telemedicine thing and has been doing that ever since. Gone were her commutes into the office. Me, yeah, I worked from home, producers, properly masked, doing drive-bys in front of our building for a quick hard drive hand-off. Eventually, I was working back at the usual places which are, again, quick commutes involving lovely morning and evening walks. Walks that sometimes produced creative insight, unblocked some creative challenge with which I grappled at the time. If it was summer and I was engaged with some purely creative step of a project that didn't require hardware of any kind, I'd go down to the lake, stake out a space on a bench then read a script and make notes. Or read a script and think about music. Or just sit there along the shore on a sunny day thinking about melody and arrangements and mentally iterating those melodies and arrangements.

Location. Location. Location.

By the way, a lot of the walks Kimmer 'n I indulged started by the lake, near that wooden boat place. Of course across from the wooden boat place is Tapster... which makes a lovely reward for a mile, two mile walk on a summer's evening.

Tapster, by the way, is a self-service tasting room with wine and beer on tap. Grab a glass, pour however much you want, mix whatever you want if that's your deal. You're charged by the ounce.

For a month or two (or a few), there was a magnificent food truck serving authentic Mexican food out front of Tapster. Seriously, that food was great. We were definitely sorry when they moved to another location, but it's a firm memory tied to that location, just down the hill from us.

Speaking of just down the hill from us, for a couple years there we had a storage unit a block east of Tapster that I did walk down to and up from once during a snow storm because that's where Kimmer'd left her boots.

Go figure.

Just up the street from us, barely a block away, there was the lemon crepe place, properly known as Cafe Barjot, the sister cafe to Joe Bar that's further up the street. Joe Bar, by the way, is where we retreated during part of Linzy's audition for Cornish College of the Arts at Kerry Hall in 2016 that's basically across the street from Joe Bar.

Those lemon crepes, though. Also a firm memory tied to the hill. It wasn't just the crepes, though. Okay it was mostly the crepes. But there was also being in the place, physically being there. Everyone with masks on and chatting. Maybe with each other, mostly with staff.

That was a big deal during the pandemic. An almost normal experience with other human beings.

Up the hill a block, a few blocks over, before the pandemic, is the flagship Top Pot Donuts, the one that gave rise to all the others. Before the pandemic, we used to stop in there for a donut or two... and you better believe that memory's firmly tied to the hill.

There are more memories, of course, that I've managed to document in the years we lived here.

Hmmmmm.

That's actually a twist in our story that I'll continue tomorrow. It's that time we actually moved, moved everything from our apartment...

Yet didn't really go anywhere.

[beerselfie]

#Repost @hopsgalore Oh heyyyyy🍻😊 Took a lil 4 month vacation from social media. It’s done wonders ✌🏾 Take breaks y’all, it’s good for the soul ❤️ But I missed my online fam too much! We have so much to catch up on! 🤗 #pnwcraftbeer #seattlewashington #seattlebeerscene #tapster #beeranista #bestfriends #stoutseason #sailormoon https://www.instagram.com/p/CXpfAOnLmet/?utm_medium=tumblr

[amanu360]

BADWOLFF performs their new album, Hongry Wolff in its entirety. Nov. 9th @ Tapster (2027 W North Avenue, Chicago IL). 8pm NO COVER.