“You stink of horse.” -Saruman, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
You know you don’t work at a first rate restaurant when your co-bartender always has disgusting body odour. Her name was Jodie.
She wasn’t a bad person, but I wouldn’t call her honest or reliable either. Most bars have a girl or two (or three) that get around. Jodie was ours. While she thought she was so hot, as many woman who get attention do, most men just have no standards.
Because besides her body odour she was obese, homely looking, and had a voice sounding like a cat being strangled. I’m not saying she didn’t deserve love or affection but she was no Carmen Electra or Brianna Banks. I wouldn’t have touched her if she was the last woman alive!
To be fair, I don’t judge peoples’ sexual choices or think it’s anyone elses’ business. I just found it frustrating that someone like her, who didn’t even have a pleasant personality, could bed most guys she wanted on a regular basis. Given the months I could go without any decent attention from women, even when I was at peak physical shape, I’ve internalized a harsh reality: Most women just need to be decent looking and show up to get laid… and the first part is usually optional. And while I did better with women as I got older and more personable, I resent women like Jodie and the simps who enable them.
***
Unsurprisingly, she got flirty and tried to fuck me to. With my dry spell at the time that was beyond annoying but still not remotely tempting. She’d often touch my forearms, asking me to flex, back her fat ass against my crotch, and do other disgusting things that would’ve been seen as harassment if men did them to women. I was probably the only one, that I know of, that rejected her. But yet again, most men have NO standards.
Women talk about how badly men can take rejection (which is TRUE), but rarely admit how ugly they can be when it happens to them. In this case Jodie wasn’t too bad, as she had no lack of fawning, desperate suitors. But her passive aggressiveness and anger was awkward until she got fired. At least the place didn’t smell like a barn next to a cesspool after though.
Guess why she was let go? If you said body odour you’re right! Of course her colleagues, even myself, were too nice/cowardly to tell her the truth. The assistant manager had a talk with her once. Imagine being told to do that… I doubt that’s covered in any training regime. I can’t remember how it went but he asked her if she could find more time before work to shower. Apparently, her response was, “well (AGM’s name) that’s odd you mention that.”
After that abortive attempt the fishy smell problem was berthed for a while. In consolation the AGM would write a J on the whiteboard during meetings. He would then place a number (1-10) next to it to signal how bad Jodie stank that day. The J10 days were as terrible as storming Omaha Beach. Just me and one waiter knew the inside joke and while with hindsight it wasn’t kind, it wasn’t fair for us to endure a stench like a Water Buffalo’s bloated corpse when she worked.
So fucking gross!
***
It was a complaint that got her fired, one of the few times I saw a customer’s valid concern being acted upon at our restaurant. The place was a lower to lower middle class chain that had no issues throwing even veterans under the bus when any petty customer made a stink (pun intended). While a GM with guts would go to bat for great employees, in this case Jodie was legitimately expendable.
What happened was a family of five, seated in the lounge despite having kids, asked for water while they read the menu. After being exposed to Jodie’s exotic fragrance they got the hell out of dodge. They either called in or sent an email but J10 was gone within 10 days.
I don’t remember how it was explained it to us, likely as I spent the next six months training replacement bartenders at two week intervals. By the way, two weeks was the same life expectancy of new lieutenants for much of the Vietnam War.In that sense Jodie had at least been reliable.
To save her job all she had to do was shower, wear deodorant, or drown in enough perfume to incapacitate a trench line in Flanders. But for the last time guys have no standards and she brought in enough men, business, and tips for the bean counts to tolerate her aroma… from afar.
Had it not been for the family who complained she’d likely still be there.