The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat

I was tending bar the other night and had the TV on the Food Network. I can have whatever channel I want on the TV whenever I am tending bar and have found that when I have the Food Network on, and they are showing the making of some tasty-looking dish, I tend to have higher food sales. But, because I get bored pretty easily with television, I tend to switch it around a bit: CNN, Nick at Night, Seinfeld episodes, Oregon Public Broadcasting, some bizarre Korean game show I found once, old movies, Jeopardy or Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Animal Planet, The Travel Channel, The History Channel, and I tend to only tune in to the sports channels under one of the following conditions: 1) the Olympics are on, 2) there is some hot women’s sporting event on, 3) ESPN is running the bartending championships (yes, somehow, that is considered a sport), 4) the world series/March Madness/NBA championships or some other MAJOR event is on, or 5) a customer nicely requests it. Yet, even though we are not a sports bar by any stretch of the imagination, people seem to expect sports to be on a bar television. In fact, one of our owners (the one who is rarely ever there) insists that we always have sports on the TV.

But do you know what happens when some random football game is on the telly? Well, I’ll tell you. What happens is that most of the men are utterly captivated by it and most of the women who are there with men are bored and irritated because the men aren’t paying any attention to what they are saying. I know, it sounds like a cliche, but it’s true (remember, we’re in the suburbs, so factor that in). Women who are there with other women are engaged in conversation with one another, typically, and tend to not even notice what is on the television. But, since it pains me to see women sitting idly and looking around as if they are bored while their male companions are riveted by each play on the screen, I tend not to have sports on so as not to have my female clientele feeling alienated.

But, still, it is what people inexplicably expect.

So I had the Food Network on and this guy sits up at my bar. I’m in the middle of assembling a take-out order for someone who is waiting, so I say hello to the guy and tell him I’ll be right with him. His acknowledgement in return is “any chance of changing the channel to sports?”

Lovely. I see where this is going (see aforementioned comment regarding the expectation of sports to be on a bar TV regardless).

“Is there a particular game you wanted to watch?” I ask him, even though I already know the answer.

“Nah, just so long as it’s sports,” he says – almost verbatim with my prediction. “I don’t even care if it’s bowling.”

“So let me get this straight,” I venture, dipping my foot into what could be very precariously unwise water, “you want me to turn the channel to sports, but you don’t even care what sport it is or who is playing it, so long as it is sports and not anything else?” (I so do not get this).

He confirms that what I say is correct and I finish up what I’m doing, ask him what he’d like to drink and offer him a dinner menu (hey, business first, right?). After mixing his cocktail, I grab the remote control and turn it to ESPN. I don’t even recall what the featured event was, but it made the guy happy. He then asked me if I was watching the Food Network (and proceeded to inform me that I could change it back after he left…no, pal, I can change it back right now if I please because I’m the one with the remote control and you’re the one who better leave me a decent tip for succumbing to your viewing whims or I’ll remember you and not change the channel next time). I let out a little laugh and told him that no, I wasn’t watching the Food Network, that I was working. He told me that he’d never been into a bar before where they had the Food Network on the TV. So? He allows me to continue a sassy, but friendly banter with him and to treat his request as a ridiculous one. He’s a good sport so I’ll change the channel for him next time he comes in.

Not everyone is such a good sport about it, though. Some are outright demanding and sometimes they aren’t even out of middle school. Yep, that’s right. I recently had a nine-year-old boy tell me to change it to the football game (I had CNN on at the time) and he even followed up his demand with, “sports bars should always have sports on the TV.”

“That’s true,” I confirmed for the self-absorbed tyke, “but this isn’t a sports bar, it’s just a bar.” Unfortunately, our bar allows minors at the tables for dining and restricts them only from sitting at the bar stools. I continue working while the kid cuts away from his table of all-elementary-school kids to the neighboring table where their parents are doing their best to ignore their offspring and rats me out to his dad. The dad then approaches me to explain that the kids (let’s just say that they were not using their indoor voices) would be more “focused” if football were on the TV. Given that the volume of kidnoise was giving me a headache (and that somehow I’m hearing focused=quieter), I said ok and changed the channel. Suddenly, it was as if these boy children were in the stadium with the other screaming fans – they got even louder, those kids!

And it got me thinking back to when I was a kid and there was something I noticed that I didn’t like or wished was different and I only learned to deal with my displeasure of the situation. Never did I learn that I had a voice and that my opinions mattered enough to create change. Is this the product of a new generation or a different style of parenting? Does it serve the kids well to be raised feeling as though they can object and change will occur as a result? Or is it better for kids to learn that they can’t change/control everything and that the world does not revolve around them and that sometimes you need to learn to deal with what you are dealt?