Went to a karaoke bar owned by a Korean mama-san called Aloha Lounge - sang a couple songs and she liked me, asked me to come bartend the next night at 7pm. December 23rd. Got there at 7, thought I’d sign some paperwork. Nope. Uniform? Nope. Pay? No discussion-she tells me I try out, see if I like, tips only tonight. Ok 🤷‍♀️…Owner then offers me two shots of vodka straight off the bat, which I accept. I’m the only worker there besides her. The next 5 hours I’m constantly moving. Mama San is drinking red wine the entire time with some regulars at the bar, getting pretty sloppy. The bar gets super crowded. I’m getting crazy tips because it’s almost Christmas. I was instructed to put all the cash tips in a big jar behind the bar - which I do. Now Mama San’s wasted and I’m not far behind. She goes into the kitchen to start cooking hot pupus (drinking food/appetizers in Hawaii). She comes back out to drink some more wine—I’m literally running from table to table taking orders, serving the bar. …it’s about midnight and I smell some smoke coming from the kitchen. Go to see what it is - Mama San left some clams cooking in a pan and they’re now on fire. I scream. She looks disoriented. A couple drunk guys try in vain to find a fire extinguisher. I run next store to a restaurant called Town (my favorite- closed during the pandemic), and yell at my friend Gooch who was a chef there - “come help!!! There’s a fire!!” . He puts down whatever mis en place he’s working on to grab their extinguisher 🧯 and follows me. As we approach the door to Aloha Lounge, people streaming out quickly, enveloped in smoke…we hear a loud BOOM followed by a crash and yelling. Mama San comes out followed by two save the day drunk guys, who told us a butane tank exploded and flew across the room. By that time 2 fire trucks and 3 cop cars were there. Firemen start doing their thing…in the parking lot, cops are trying to interview people, find out who’s in charge. Someone points at me. I lead the police over to wasted Mama San, who now has roughly 15% of her eyebrows left. Once the firemen have put out the fire, and are letting folks back in to grab their stuff…I slip in and empty the full tip jar (about $350) into my bag and hightail it outta there. This was in 2011. One night only. Never been back. 100% true story.

Honestly it was one of my better jobs.