A dirty bar-maid was born

I've turned over a new leaf and am finally delving into the alter-ego I've been fantasising about since I hit puberty and like most young girls developed an infatuation for the leather-clad, big-booted, muscle-upped bad boy. And the best way to get to these bad boys?

Be a dirty barmaid.

You heard it here first folks. I'm officially a dirty bar-maid.

And we're not talking any of that pussy RSL bistro waitress crap, but the fully-fledged, sports-bar, stale-beer-soaked-couches and cleaning up after drunken gamblers dirty bar-maid. And I love every minute of it.

My first day on Saturday arvo saw the drunken old timers swaggering up to the bar as I timidly began to learn my way around the taps with twinkles in their eyes;
'G'day love. You the new apprentice, eh? ' they'd give a tooth-gaped grin.
I'd glance in their direction, cringing as another slop of beer escaped the glass and ran down my already drenched arm with the rolled up sleeve.
"That's right" I'd smile mischievously, gearing up for their next remark.
David, Biff, Charlie or Kev would then extend a grubby hand to shake my wet one as they ask for my name.
"Lana or larn, was it?"
I nod, "Whatever you're still able to pronounce at the end of the day mate."
They'd cackle, ask for another schooner of beer and swagger back to their mates and the plasma screen showing the horse race at Eagle Park or the dish lickers in Shepparton.

Within an hour of donning my dirty bar-maid smile I was on first-name basis with half the bar, had learnt that Charlie's beers were always free because his week's pay was always blown before it had even reached the bottom of his pocket on the doggies, Fred liked a shot of lemonade in his beer and that Dave was a 'stalker'; "It's alright, I need one of them" I tell him not glancing up from the beer I'm trying to get the perfect head on. No puns thanks.

A group of hot guys strut in and take seats around the front window; replenishing their rounds every few minutes as I dash up and down the bar trying to get in clean glasses and not drop a rack holding 50 schooners that are the thin line in between my living to a ripe old age and dying at the age of 19. I'm sent around the sports bar to grab dirty glasses and wipe tables, gliding past the table of hot guys I nervously squeeze in amidst them and don't make eye contact, my bar-maid charm taking a cigarette break as I begin to stack their mountain of glasses into my trembling hands. They have gone from laughing and bantering boyishly to going awkwardly quiet and I skim around their table hoping I don't fuck things up when one (and ugly one--- fuck!!) coyly smirks and tells me about the spillage 'down there' nodding his head in the direction of his open legs.
I give a faint smile, "Yeh, sorry, I can't help you with that' and I wonder if they got the joke as I move back to the bar with the stack of glasses, leaving silence in my wake amongst them. The dirty bar-maid heard no more from then on-in.

Later, zipping past the older blokes through their roars of 'Kick the cunt! Kick 'im!' I accidentally knocked over an empty schooner glass that bangs down loudly onto the wooden table top amidst piss-taking cries of "Ahhhh!!! Geeze Lana!" from the blokes as they cackle. I hold up my hands, holding scrunched up tote tickets and a wetex, "You're all drunk!" I announce, "You're just imaging things!". They cackle for a minute before turning back to their precious doggies and ponies, "Carrn you mousy prick!!".

But from that first day- those mere six hours I decided that pouring beers is just one of the things I was born to do.

Write, drink, pull, ride, drive, rouse, drench, dance, laugh- my life. Fuck yeah!!

Raise your glasses to all of your resident (dirty) bar-maids.