Bartenders realize customers don’t always ask for what they want. What
 they’re thinking of and what comes out of their mouths are sometimes two
 different things. When that happens a little bell goes off in our heads and
we ask questions about the specifics. It isn’t that we don’t know what we’re
 doing or do it to annoy you. We ask because we want to make sure we get it
 right. We’re happy to make what you’re asking for as long as you’re sure
 it’s what you actually want.

It was a busy happy hour at a swanky hotel bar where the customers were more
 hostile than they were beautiful.  A group of three girls came up to the bar.
 The leader of the “Mean Girls” looks me over and barks her order, “Three
 Chambord Martinis.”  I know she couldn’t possibly want three glasses of
Chambord…that would be disgusting.  So I’m like, “A Chambord Martini?” She
 purses her lips, “You don’t know what Chambord is? It’s right over there.”
 She points to the bottle on the glass shelf on the wall.  I just smile.  I try
 to get a little more info out of her but she’s a pretender (someone who
isn’t happy with who they are and try to look and sound more important by
 demeaning others) and my guess is that she’s trying to impress the girls
 she’s with.

 I begin making her order. On principal alone I refuse to pour three glasses
 of straight Chambord. I cut it with vodka and 7-up to make a relative to the
 Purple Hooter/Hollywood family. It’s the closest thing in color and probably
 closer to what she actually wants but refuses to work with me to figure it
 out. I shake them over ice and pour. “Thirty-nine dollars, please.” She
 looks at them slightly confused and takes a sip before even considering
paying for them.  And of course, she’s not happy. “This isn’t it. This isn’t
 a French Martini” I want to smack her. “You said Chambord Martini, not
 French Martini. You also said purple-ish and these are purple-ish.” She
 glances at the other girls, her facade cracking, “I know. But that’s what I
 meant, a French Martini. You know, with champagne.”

 Out of nowhere she not only had the name of the drink but she knew
 ingredients. If she had been this forthcoming from the beginning I wouldn’t
 have to worry about trying to sell off half a poured bottle of Chambord. I
 really could have killed her.  Fuming, I took the glass she had sipped from,
 poured it into a shaker tin and flooded it with vodka to compensate for the
 over abundance of Chambord. I added pineapple juice, shook it over ice and
 poured it into three new glasses. I topped each one with flat house
 champagne that I had been trying to pour off all day. My revenge came when I told her the price.
 “Fifty-one dollars, please.” The amount stunned her and for the first time
 serving her I smiled.