A Golden Geyser

"Can I have a large Bud Lite please?"

I raise the ice covered mug to the silver draft and slide the lever forward. There are two glorious seconds where the golden brew flows then there is a sputter and a cough of foam splatters beer up my arm. "F%&@, the keg is out."

For all of you that don't know I have been sentenced to spend my summer faithfully preforming my duties as the world's worst bartender. Okay, maybe I'm not that bad and I am perhaps less than faithful, but you get the idea. The kegs are in a double door cooler just big enough for the three of them. Non-alcoholic beer (pointless shit) and the wine chillers are crammed in around them. These are the steps for changing a keg: 

1. find pubescent dish boy with spaghetti arms 

2. together wrestle keg onto dolly 

3. both jump on handle until dolly tips and dish boy is able to cart it out of the walk in and into the bar

4. hastily pile non-alcoholic beer (pointless shit) and wine chillers in the corner

5. discover that the bud lite is the middle keg, which means in order to remove the empty I must first lift a full keg of Bud (regular) over the lip of the door and far enough away from the opening that I can get the empty out the door. 

6.yank miserably on keg of bud whilst muttering obscenities under my breath, dish boy joins in, then a waitress who really needs her drink order. 

7. fucker won't move

At this point cranky restaurant owner storms into the bar. Spaghetti arm dish boy, needy waitress, and I (inept bartender?) freeze. He scatters us like gulls at the beach, grabs the freaking, stubborn keg of Bud and yanks it free. He disconnects the empty keg and hands it to dish boy, glaring as if to say, see? see how easy? He pulls the fresh keg to the cooler door and begins to attach the hose.

I stare in horror. 

In his pissed off hurry, he is connecting it wrong. I knows this because I have received several lectures on proper keg attachment procedure. Mostly from cranky restaurant owner. There's a hurricane a commin'...

He breaks the seal and a geyser of foaming beer-y goodness shoots into the air, directly into the face of cranky restaurant owner. The air is sucked from the bar and silence descends. He growls, manages to catch the seal threads, shoves both kegs back into the cooler, and storms out without a word.   

Dish boy stares at me, his face white, and slowly the corners of his little mouth turn up. "Holy...." He breaths. 

My sentiments exactly.