So I spent this weeked at Comfest, as usual. This was our last year having a place in Victorian Village (although moving to Grandview Heights doesn't make us too far away).
We arrived at the old place by noon-ish. By 12:30, the streets were parked up. Robin arrived a bit later, we enjoyed lunch at Northstar, then headed off to Comfest! Lots of people watching. Our NADE friend, Dean, currently from Oklahoma City, formerly of Austin, TX, was in town to experience the excitement of Comfest and Pride...luckily Pride will be a different week next year. Too much drama for one weekend!
Anyway, Robin and I were prepared with our travel toilet paper, bottles of water, and Comfest mugs. We chilled, enjoyed the weather, and enjoyed the people watching. It was so damn hot, though. I didn't drink much, to my dismay.
On Saturday, we tried Marshall's, a weird breakfast diner/bar mix for brunch. It's a block from our new house. It was pretty good. Robin went back to Cleveland and Joe and I recovered a bit until Alex and Mike arrived. Then it was back to Victorian Village, back to the old place (there was an ugly topless chick on the neighbor's porch.) Then we wondered back to Goodale to enjoy the festivities.
I signed in at 7 for what was supposed to be my 4 hour beertending shift. About 10 minutes into it, I had two separate men tell me that I can't pour beer. There is a secret trick to Comfest beer pouring that I quickly learned last year that these jerks were oblivious to (maybe due to being too busy drinking beer themselves than serving it). Comfest mugs that are transparent have really bad head when you pour. Opaque mugs do not have bad head. In addition, Labat Blue foams much more than the Columbus Pale Ale, or even Labat Lite. These dudes, whom I bet I could rival in my beer knowledge, were intent on flashing their manliness to me and telling me how I need to tilt the glass to pour (I was) and that I needed to use a nice rocking action.
A woman next to me, after the second one left, says to me, "They told me the same thing. I've been beertending for 12 years. Do they think I don't know how this works?" That made me feel a bit better. Girl power!
Then, before I know it, another guy starts harassing me for ID-ing people. Um, okay.
#1 rule of Comfest Beer Booth - don't serve underagers. We could lose our license.
#2 rule of Comfest, no free beer. Comfest beer sales are the biggest income for the festival. If they lost the booth, all that goes down the drain.
He wasn't just harassing me, though. He was harassing another chick as well. I'd never experienced so much concentrated sexism in my life - all at a festival that is supposed to embrace others for who they are and maintain the mellow!
What really set me off and led to me actually quitting my shift less than halfway into it?
When the same guy, complaining that I was IDing people, told me the following:
"You need to give free beer out. Why are you charging people? See, you need to give beer to the ones that look like they can't afford it and charge the ones that look like they can. Like that guy, see him? He has nice clothes. He can afford beer. Charge him."
I stopped and turned and walked away. I wish I had said, "oh, you mean I should be profiling people. Judging them. AT COMFEST?"
What an asshole.
Needless to say, I had enough and walked off. Screw my T-Shirt, screw my free beer, screw my beer tokens for next year. It was not worth ruining my Comfest experience to deal with those jerks. I probably should have reported them to the manager, but I was too furious.
Anyway, that just meant I had time to spend with my friends. Alex and Mike were in town for Saturday night. Luckily, we missed the torrential downpours and thunderstorming and mudthrowing.
The picture for this post is right after I stood in line for the port-o-potty for about 30 minutes to find out they were out of toilet paper. I'm not a drip dry girl. I had forgotten my travel TP at home. I was devastated. However, some random guy flew in, shoved TP in my hand, and said "need this?" and flew back away into the crowd.
What goes around comes around. That mere act of kindness made my pissy beertending experience anger go away.
This is what Comfest is all about!
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