miss_joy

Miss Joy and the Symphony of Fire

Let me tell a tale of when I was a twenty year old student spending the summer being a tour guide and bartender on the cruise boats in the Toronto harbour.

I was a more a tour guide than a bartender but on the busy nights they would ask me to work a shift in the evening. They usually tried to give me easy work because of my rusty bartending skills.

In Toronto there is an event called the Symphony of Fire. Over a month in the summer once or twice a week there would be a night of fireworks out over the water in time with music (played on a local radio station).

You could watch from anywhere by the water but all seven of our boats would also be booked those nights the best view was from on the water.

So the last night of the Symphony of Fire is the grand finale. Over thirty or forty minutes of music and fireworks.

I was drafted to a boat called the Rosemary. She was the smallest boat in our fleet. Usually she hosted very classy cruises kind of like a private yacht. The staff needed was very small Captain, First Mate, Manager (a student like me) and a Bartender (yours truly).

I knew the night was off to a bad start when I showed up an hour early to set up my bar and there were clients already waiting. It was a corporate cruise and their invites were printed wrong saying it was starting an hour earlier than it was and they wanted on an (unpaid) hour early.

We hustled and did what we could and got them on about fifteen minutes early. But they still werent happy.

Then they started to drink. A lot.

As they drank they became more annoying. We started sailing and they kept turning up the music - to the point the captains couldnt hear the marine radio (not good on such a busy night).

Then someone broke a bottle of vodka into my ice pit. I did have more backup ice for drinks but now I had to watch out for shards of glass when fishing around for cold bottles of beer.

Then someone dropped their potato salad in my backup ice. Well no more cold drinks.

And just so so rude!

They were also really pissing off the captains who decided to take matters into their own hands.

The night was very windy and most of the boats even the 500 person capacity boats werent leaving the safety of the harbour. But the Rosemary? We went out.

The captains just wanted them to sit down and shut the hell up.

So then the waves began. My bottles were sliding violently from one side of the bar to the other. I was having a hard time pouring and keeping the drinks in the glass. I mean, I was cutting some people off anyway at this point, but it was bad.

The fireworks and music began.

And me

I got seasick.

My poor manager was trying to cover for me while I ran to the head.

Me and about half the passengers!

Ive never been so sick in my life! And I had to keep working. Meanwhile explosions are going off all in time to the blasting tune of Sweet Caroline.

I have never been so happy to get to shore as I was that night. I remember no fireworks and I think I must have been green. It took forever to do my bar counts because I was so sick. I asked to never work on the Rosemary again.

And it took a long time to be able to enjoy the song Sweet Caroline again without retching.