“In an Irish pub, you’re not just buying a drink, you’re buying a story.” -An old Irish proverb

I have a messed up sense of humour. I’m that person who finds ridiculous, out of place, even stupid things, hilarious. Only my best friends share this humour, or more likely pretend to. My mom, who often has no sense of humour, tells me how absurd this is, but whatever. Laughter is subjective and if it offends you either take the hit, leave the room, or wait for the next joke.

It’s a sign of how thin-skinned and whiny people have become that when Family Guy came out 25 years ago everyone loved it; but now people are ALWAYS offended by something its done. No one understands…. wahhhhhhhhh!

My older brother and I haven’t gotten along most of our lives. I’d say we’ve liked each other 10% of our lives (and that’s beings generous), but at least he has a great sense of humour. 

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There’s a local Irish pub near my mom’s house we sometimes went to. It say only sometimes because the service was meh and the women per men ratio was rarely impressive (I was single and hadn’t been laid in a long time, OKAY). I once embarrassed myself when someone wearing a shirt with the bar’s logo asked what I thought of the place.

I was serving three of them and said “nice place, but the service isn’t good, has it gotten better?” The man, who was very polite, pointed across the table and said “I don’t know, why don’t you ask the manager.” I’m decent enough to know when to put my foot in my mouth and immediately surrendered, saying something like: “Man, I’m sorry, every restaurant has problems.”

But tellingly, the manager wasn’t angry or defensive… at all. He merely said “it’s hard to find good people” and the awkward exchange ended without a punch to my face. This was fortunate as they were proud Irishmen and I was of English descent. While I felt bad, my analysis was still correct. As Jon Taffer one wisely noted, “the common denominator of all bad bar managers is excuses.” 

“It’s hard to find good people”… c’mon! Imagine if Winston Churchill in 1940 and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2022 had said that and shrugged. The map of Europe would be different and history would have turned out darker.

The place mostly hired Irish people who came to Canada. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s an authentic Irish pub. But when you hire exclusively from one group, especially with a tiny pool of manpower, you may not find enough gems to make a bar great. Despite what you think bartending, I mean competent bartending, is actually hard and most people can’t do it.

I heard later the manager had a nervous breakdown, got drunk, and drove into the bank near the bar. Maybe he had money issues but he didn’t get into the vault and ride off into the sunset. Nobody’s perfect… I hope he got the help he needed.

Anyway, being a proud Irish pub it had some eccentricities. They wouldn’t allow English products, no matter how well they sold. I remember the next GM, the one who didn’t drive into a bank, tell my friend they didn’t sell Newcastle because it was English crap. I wonder if he declared allegiance to the Queen when he got his citizenship. In Canada we allow immigrants to refuse this… because we are too polite. Imagine trying that in America!

More amusing for me was when I applied there the waitress asked, in a thick Irish accent “do you have a C.V?” I almost said “do you mean a resume ma’am… we’re in Canada.” Instead I laughed on the inside. But the best part of being a true Irish bar were the doors. 

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In Ireland, like in the U.K, if they have double doors leading into a place the one on the left opens and the right one doesn’t. In North America it’s the opposite.Call me an oddball, or psychopath, but I loved watching people come into the bar, choose the wrong door, fall back in confusion, and then try the left side. The look of confusion on their faces, before cautiously testing the left door always made me chuckle.

My brother and I, who got along back then for some reason, would play chess there sometimes. Because we both had the same twisted sense of humour we kept a pad of paper next to us. On one side we recorded how often people chose the wrong door and on the other side we noted when they made the right call. 

The regulars, unless they were 15 drinks in (it was an Irish bar), chose the right (or I guess the left?) door most of the time. People who came in irregularly succeeded 50% of the time, at best. But first time customers… they were so predictable. One hundred percent of the time they fell for the wrong door, stumbled back in shock, and my brother and I howled! 

One day we were playing chess during a typical weekday afternoon. My brother is the kind of person who can never admit they’re wrong and rarely apologizes You’d have better luck winning an argument with a flag pole than him conceding a point. It’s why I love chess, video games, and competitive things outside of arguing… especially when it’s just one on one. 

Chess is the best example: You have the same pieces, get no reinforcements, and both sides are equal. Except that white goes first, giving it that one advantage. It’s why I always prefer being black… because I enjoy being the underdog no matter what.

Anyway, I had won the last 8 out of 9 matches against him but succumbed to complacency and hubris. Those are never good qualities and history is full of nations, armies, and businesses collapsing from them. Or maybe it was the beer? At the time I was skinny and my brother was chubby and could hold his booze better.

Either way, I lost and having only won 1 out 9 games my brother, predictably, “retired as the champion.” Of course I reminded him that’s not how it works. I’m no sports guy, but in hockey if you lose 4 of 7 games you lose the Stanley Cup. He certainly didn’t take Berlin or nuke Hiroshima. When that failed I offered to play another game… or 3. My brother quickly changed the subject.

At this point we were drunker than usual and since we were done with chess we focused on the fools who kept picking the wrong door. We got mildly louder and kept saying “oooohhhh” whenever someone picked the wrong door. By now the bartender, thoroughly confused by our behaviour and writing things on our note pad, approached us. Giving us that “what the fuck” look he asked what we were doing.

Being sloshed, we told him the truth in a proud and humorous manner (good old liquid courage). All I remember is the bartender saying “you guys are bastards,” as he walked away in disgust. No doubt my brother and I had a good howl over it.

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Afterwards, and I’d like to think we had something to do with it, they put a sign in front of the right side door, to prevent people from trying the wrong door. And after they moved to another location they fixed the flaw outright by having just one door to enter the bar.

Some people have no sense of humour!