Cosmo-Not

So my friends Paul and Margaret and I did bar trivia tonight. I don't drink, and thus seldom go to bars, so this was a fairly new experience for me. But I love trivia, not to mention Paul and Margaret, so I knew I'd have a blast. It was at a place called The Blue Spark. It had tons of retro movie and album art (besides the standard beer signs), and they played pretty good music. (Though I didn't take advantage of it, the place even had a digital jukebox! Neat!) However, my beverage of choice, Coca-Cola, was not on the menu. Seriously, how many restaurants have RC Cola as their vendor of choice? With my standard out of the running, I decided to have a nonalcoholic spritzer of my own making. So, I skipped up to the bartender with my request:

Me: Hi, could I get a cranberry juice and 7-up please?
Bartender: Sure
Me: And could you put some sugar on the rim to make me feel special? (I asked this giving him my most winning smile.)
Bartender: Sure! (Smile returned.)

He shook the contents with ice and poured them into an adorable sugared glass, and charged me only a dollar. But later, I go up to the bar and it's a different bartender. I ask for the same thing, which he starts to put into a plain paper cup. Dismayed, I mention what I had before.

Bartender: No, we only do that for alcoholic drinks.
Me: He did it before...
Bartender: Well, there must have been some alcohol in it.
Me: No, there wasn't.
::He asks the other guy about it. When he confirms what he served me, Bartender #2 throws the paper cup and ice he'd started to prepare across the floor and angrily flings my spritzer into a sugared pilsner.::
Bartender: $1.50 (and I wasn't about to quibble).

The point of the story is this: I understand if they're keeping track of inventory or something, but don't us teetotalers, designated drivers, etc. deserve fun glasses too? Don't we deserve to be treated like any paying customer? I spent plenty there, considering I got a pizza for dinner as well. But...

This story is only part rant. It's also a nod of appreciation for bartenders that don't treat temperant customers as annoyances, or even go the extra mile to prepare a virgin special. Kudos to the guy at The Blue Spark tonight. I wish I could have afforded to give him a bigger tip.

And in case you're curious, we missed winning a prize by 3 points, but we still had fun. And I won some Samuel Adams glasses in a raffle.