...whiskey happened

Oh, whiskey night! Oh, the madness! The humanity! Oh, sweet, sweet whiskey night! So many memories... Should I even talk about whiskey night? I don't think I can actually put into words what happened on whiskey night. Sure, I can try to tell the story, describe what happened as best I can remember but it would only be a pale shadow of the real thing. Okay, before any of you let your imagination run wild, it was all (mostly) harmless fun. Everything was (kind of) under control. Nobody got (seriously) hurt. And we were all able to laugh about it later. So yeah, it was nothing too crazy. But it was by far one of the most awesome parties of the Spring semester. It was memorable for so many reasons. So, so many reasons... But let's start from the beginning...

After the relative success of wine-and-cheese night we decided that we should have these small parties more often. But we wanted to have a different 'theme' every time. Turned out that a lot of us had never tried whiskey so the Americans decided to educate us poor fools. Whiskey night it was then. Just like last time we bought our own alcohol - I decided to go for a bottle of honey whiskey because the real thing tastes like  hatred in a bottle - and got some snacks (and some tipsy toffee again).
Now, to be quite honest I don't remember how the night began. I guess we had a few drinks, listened to music, talked about random stuff and just generally had a good time. I don't know when things got out of hand... or what happened first... Was it the lipstick? Or the epilator? Or the wall? I have no idea how things turned out the way they did! My memories from that night are disjointed and hazy, with occasional bright flashes in between. I guess it's best to start with the wall because that one is my brightest memory and I'm pretty sure it happened relatively early in the night.
Let me just set up the backdrop here.
My room was one of the biggest among the students and I had one of the longest balconies I've ever seen. It wasn't big, it was just really long and narrow. There was an apartment occupied by a random Japanese guy to the left of mine and our balconies were separated by a thin wall, just for the sake of privacy. Now, during the course of the night it got really hot and stuffy in my room - I think it was May or something - so we opened the windows and a few of us went to the balcony to cool off a bit. It was there that two girls decided to show off their dance moves. I was still inside so I'm not sure about the details but I saw some of it and heard the rest. Anyhoo, as the girls were dancing one of our male students showed up and told them that they had no idea how to twerk - so he decided to show them how it's really done. And he did. He started twerking, pushing the girls into the corner of the balcony against the separating wall. I guess the girls decided to hop aside at the last moment or maybe he was just too... uh... enthusiastic?... but what happened next sent us all running to the balcony. There was a long crash, a bang and next thing I knew there was a hole in the wall separating my balcony from the next one. A giant gaping hole...
It was just an unfortunate accident and I wasn't even angry (honestly, at the moment it happened I thought it was hilarious). Besides, these walls were made to break (in case of fires or earthquakes) so it was only a matter of time it happened. Still, even in my drunken state I was pretty sure my neighbor might get pissed so I tried to fix the problem... as well as a drunk person could. I got out some superglue and tried to glue the missing piece of drywall back to it's original place. A sober me would have known it was a futile effort but sober me was long gone by that point in time. After messing around with the glue for a while I only managed to get my hands dirty and glue a piece of paper onto my arm but the wall was still falling apart.
On to plan B then! Duct tape! Yeah, that worked about as well as the superglue, only now there was a piece of tape stuck to my pants and I was covered in dust. I remember someone trying to help me put the wall back together and someone laughing and taking pictures behind my back. Because that's what friends are for. I was just curled up in the corner of my balcony, trying to fix an unfixable wall, unsure whether I was crying or laughing (I was doing both.... because it was just that hilarious for drunken me). After a while I decided to abandon the effort and head back inside because I felt like something interesting was going on there.
I don't know how or when the epilator made it's way into my room. I guess it all started on the topic of pain and a few of the girls were determined to show how much more shit women have to deal with in their daily lives. So we offered to shave the legs of the guys just so they could feel what it's like to have your hair ripped one one by one by an electrical device. The guys... were not very happy with this turn of events because even the alcohol didn't manage to numb the pain. There was lots of swearing and screaming going on and ten minutes later one of our Japanese friends had silky smooth legs. He says that a few days after the party he was walking along the street and heard a couple of girls behind him comment on how nice and smooth his legs looked... so I guess we did him a favor? So yeah, whiskey night was also the night we shaved a guys legs with an electrical razor. Thankfully hair grows back...
The last thing that happened was lipstick. Not quite sure who's lipstick it was or how it all came to pass but we decided to have a little drawing competition... that only ended once the lipstick was almost completely gone. I'm not going to go too much into detail about the lipstick - things were written and faces were painted and I distinctly remember the guy who's legs we'd shaved looking like a creepy clown, topped off with a tiny had I'd bought for Halloween. And there was one girl going: 'I'm gonna make you look beautiful!' while she was drawing on people's faces.
The next morning was... just such a mess! Not only did my room look like a herd of stampeding buffaloes had passed through, I also felt like death had grabbed my by the throat and tried to suck the life out of me sometime in the middle of the night. I looked around my room wondering at first why I was even up. Then I remembered that I had to go to school. Then I wondered what had happened to my balcony... and I remembered. Then I wondered why there was lipstick on my curtains and walls... I decided to disregard it for a moment and headed to the bathroom.
What awaited me there was... a nightmare. Apparently there was more than one clown-faced person at the party. My first thought was 'Why is there lipstick on my eyebrows?!' followed by 'And why is there lipstick on my ears?! And arms?! And neck?!' I had twenty minutes before I had to go to school and those twenty minutes were spent in a frantic panic as I was trying to clean the lipstick off my face and body. There were still a few red spots on my arms when I left the apartment but I could pass it off as a rash if I needed to.
I thought I had it bad with my red eyebrows and painted face but honestly, others had it much worse. Some had lipstick on their legs, shoulders and god knows where else. And the same girl who'd been making people look beautiful the previous night looked pretty crestfallen in the international center. When asked what was wrong she shouted in despair: 'Someone drew swastika on my leg with my very own lipstick!'. Yup, that was pretty bad alright.
Suffice it to say that everyone was a bit... uh... ashamed about what happened last night. The guy who broke my wall looked very, very sorry. And everybody else tried to hide the lipstick-marks on their bodies. But in the end it was all good. We had fun, went a bit wild but everyone survived and we had another fun story to talk about for months to come. 

...I found what I was looking for

There are days I feel like a zombie at work... like nothing is going right and I'm just a huge failure as a physio... And then there are days when I feel like punching the air and going 'YEEEEEEAH!' and doing a little victory dance and maybe a back flip. Today was one of those days. I'm probably not making much sense but just trust me when I say that today has been a good day. One of my patients, who until now made little to no progress, started walking today and I can't even describe how happy it makes me. Sure, he needs a crutch and I have to support him a bit but he's finally walking! And I feel like all the work we did is finally paying off.

Sorry for the long introduction by the way, I just needed the world to know how happy I am. The thing I really wanted to talk about is one of the worst years of my life (so far). I know, with this utterly positive introduction it's hard to believe I'm going to talk about something so dark but just stick with me for a little while and it'll all become clear.

This is the story of how I started studying physiotherapy (or physical therapy for all you Americans out there... even though those two things aren't exactly the same...).

The year was... uh... 2012, I think. I had just gotten my BA in psychology and I even got accepted to the Master's program. Only problem was that I didn't know if that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I liked psychology but... There was always that 'but'. I felt like I wanted to do something more... practical? physical? I don't know. I was kind of lost and didn't know where to go. It was also the year I first went to Japan - for two months as a volunteer - and I've already talked about how lost and confused I was during that period.

The decision to start studying physiotherapy was honestly just a spur of the moment thing. Whenever anyone asks me why I chose physiotherapy I answer that I wanted to do something practical, something where I could actually see the results of my work and so on... Honestly, as I was making the decision I wasn't even thinking about those things. It was the last day to send applications, I was in Japan and I knew I could study for free - so I enrolled in the program. I hardly had any idea what a physio actually does, I just knew I didn't want to become a nurse or a health inspector or anything like that. It was one of the biggest but least planned out decisions of my life and I wasn't even sure why I was doing it. So yeah, that's the horrible truth: I never actually planned to become a physiotherapist.

Funny, how sometimes the road you take blindly is the one you're meant to walk on.

The first year (minus one month) of my studies was the worst in recent memory. I was positively miserable. I truly hated every moment of it. See, back when I was in high school I didn't have to work very hard to get good grades. I just kind of breezed through high school without putting any actual effort into it. University was a bit more difficult but most exams were multiple choice tests so even that wasn't too bad. Physiotherapy however was another matter. For the first time in my life I actually needed to work hard to achieve something and I was not used to it. For the first time I had to stay up all night studying, had to revise something over and over again only to forget it a moment later, for the first time I actually failed an exam... and it was horrible! 

What made the first semester even harder was the fact that I felt like an outsider. I had just come back from Japan and a part of my soul was still there. Also, since I'd missed the first few weeks of school I didn't know any of my new schoolmates. I felt like they'd all formed groups already, hanging out and going to lunch together and I was kind of the odd man out. I'm a hopeless introvert so trying to make new friends is always difficult for me - that's why I barely talked to any of my fellow students for most of the first (and even second) semester. My heart was still pulling me toward Japan and I just felt that I'd made the worst mistake ever coming back to Estonia.

So, in a nutshell: I was unhappy with where I was, struggling in school, barely talking to any of my peers and longing for something I'd already lost. It was a bad time. I was certain physiotherapy was not for me and I'd made a mistake choosing to study it. Also, it was cold all the time. I was pretty bad off, especially during the Fall. I was constantly tired, stressed beyond belief and just really, really unhappy with the way things were. There were days I would go to school, come back and just crawl into bed, only emerging to go to the bathroom or get some food. I was just not feeling it anymore ('it' being everything). Yup, it was definitely one of the worst years of my life... or at least half a year. 

'Why didn't you quit your studies then?'
Because that's just not who I am. I'd made my bed and had to sleep in it. Sure, I wanted to quit. I really did, but it felt wrong. I knew it would make me feel like even bigger a failure. Still, by the time February rolled along I was so ready to bolt that I was looking for any way out of my situation... and that's when I stumbled upon the exchange program that would eventually lead me to Japan again. So yeah, my decision to go study in Japan was made because I was just not feeling living in Estonia anymore. But that is kind of another story. Anyway, for most of my first year of my physiotherapy studies I was miserable as all hell... Didn't help that I got a job in a bar and had to work nights. The only thing it did was make me so tired that I didn't have energy to think about how I was failing in life.
And then it was May.
May marked the start of my first internship. We had to do them every year in different places - we got to follow a physio around and try our hand as a physio. The first internship lasted for a month: two weeks were dedicated to children's physiotherapy and two weeks for adults. For my first two weeks I was working in a children's ward. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I can't stand children. I just can't stand them and try to avoid them as much as I can. Those two weeks didn't change my attitude toward children... but it did change my attitude toward physiotherapy.
Even though I wasn't doing much, even though I was only a student, even though I had been miserable for most of the year - despite all of that I suddenly felt... alive. I finally saw what being a physio was really like and I felt like this was what I was looking for. Even though I'd made the decision to study it for all the wrong reasons I had chosen something that in the end made me feel... useful and needed and just... happy.
Not gonna lie, during the next two years of studying there were times I wanted to bang my head against a wall just because what was going on in school but at least now I knew why I was doing this. I knew where I was headed and that helped me get through exams, long days in school and everything else that used to bring me down. It wasn't all fun and games and even the internships weren't all equally great. But I finally knew that this was what I wanted to do. It sounds corny but I just wanted to be useful. To... uh... make a difference, however small. Yeah, that does sound corny so I'm gonna move on.
 Fast forward three years and I'm finally working as a physio. The road here has been long and hard but I'm here and I'm happy. It's what I've been looking for. Sure, it's not always rainbows and sunshine. There are bad days. Then there are horrible days. There are days I feel like a complete failure... And then there are days that make it all go away and make me feel like a million bucks. See, I know that I'm no Mother Theresa and most days I'm barely making a difference but it doesn't matter. However small that difference is, even if I make just one person feel a bit more confident walking down the street, I already feel like I've done something that matters. And I can't even explain how amazing it feels when you see a person, who's this far been in a wheelchair, take their first steps with you. Even if those steps are small and unsteady and it looks like they're about to fall down any moment - even then it's a huge thing. Especially when you see that person's eyes light up as they're finally walking on their own. Any time someone says 'I never thought I'd be able to do that' I'm reminded why I chose to stick with this profession. Some days I really, really love my job. And some days I love it a little bit less - but I still love it.
Sure, I'm young and haven't been working for long. Who knows, in a year I might feel differently. In five years I might feel jaded. But right now I love it. I get to work with people and at least try to improve their lives. It doesn't always work but when it does it feels amazing. And the people... I've met some of the nicest most amazing people during my short time working as a physio. Okay, some of them are hard to deal with. There are those who aren't even sure why they've come to get therapy ('I dunno, my wife made me come') and there are those who don't care about changing anything ('Why should I bother with walking? My wife pushes me around in my wheelchair and I don't want to go out') and there are even those that become hysterical by the mere thought of walking. There are those who have already lost all hope and those who hope for miracles (and expect you to deliver). But that all goes away when you get that one patient who just brightens up your day, either because of their personality or because they achieve something they never thought possible. That one day you get a patient to walk or go up a flight of stairs makes all the bad days seem like a distant memory - like it never happened. It's those days that make me love my job. And as for the bad days, I guess they exist so I could learn from them.
So, to sum it up: I made a choice for all the wrong reasons and it turned out to be one of the best choices I've ever made. This 'worst year of my life' lead me to so many wonderful things. It was the year I was most miserable but also the year I made the right choice concerning my future and the year I decided to go to Japan to study (which was one of the most amazing experiences of my life). I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes something that felt completely wrong in the beginning might turn out to be exactly what you need, you just need to fight through the bad stuff and keep going. I guess that first year was like climbing a monstrous mountain: it was excruciating, hellish and there were times I thought it would kill me but once I reached the top and saw the view it was all worth it. Yeah, I'm happy I didn't quit halfway through. I guess sometimes clouds do have a silver lining.
Also, one of the reasons I love my job is the view. I just can't get enough of it. 

...a 'sophisticated' night turned salty

Back to Japan with my stories. So, the year was 2014 and it was I think sometime in April, in the middle of Spring semester. It all started with cheese.

See, we had this one French exchange student who was the most french person you'd ever meet. Really. Mostly because of his accent but also because everything he did was just so very... french (sorry, Percy, if you're reading this but you really are the most french person I've ever met... and I've met a total of 8 so that's saying a lot!). Anyhoo, during Spring break he decided to go home for a little bit (or he needed to go but whatever...). Before he went Mary begged him to bring back some quality French cheese and he agreed, being the generous person he is.

Fast forward a few weeks. I was going to the store one afternoon when I saw Percy on the way back to the apartment. I think it was his first day back - at least I hadn't seen him before. I greeted him as usual and asked about his trip. As I was leaving he went:

'Oh, and tell Mary I hate her now!'

'What? Why?'

'Because I brought her the cheese and now.... now my entire suitcase stinks! And all of my clothes too!'

'Oh...'

Honestly, that sounded a bit inconvenient but I thought he was being overdramatic. It was only cheese! And I was sure the smell would be gone in a little while. When I got back to the apartment I told my gang of friends that Percy had the cheese and we all agreed that we should have a sophisticated wine-and-cheese night. We thought it would be best if I took a hold of the cheese because my room was the designated party-room anyway, so a little bit later there was a knock on my door and Percy handed me the cheese.

Oh. MY. GOD.

Now I understood why he was so angry at Mary. Words cannot describe the rancid smell the cheese gave off. It was like week old roadkill that had been eaten and then regurgitated by some diseased demon-pigeon and was slowly rotting away. It was... something hellish. And here's the thing: when Percy gave it to me it was wrapped in paper, covered in saran wrap and put into a plastic bag... and it still smelled like the deepest circle of hell! I in turn wrapped the plastic bag in saran wrap, then in tinfoil and then put another plastic bag on it and shoved it into my fridge. Didn't help. Every single time I opened my fridge I was assaulted by the smell again. I felt violated... But I tried to stay positive: after all, it was only for a few days.

We decided to have our sophisticated wine-and-cheese evening on a Thursday. We got some wine, grapes, some more cheese (this time conventional 'Japanese' cheese) and a bunch of other snacks. I think it was also the first time me and Tytti made our 'tipsy toffee'. It was supposed to be regular toffee but we had a few glasses of wine while making it so we deviated from the original recipe a little bit. Basically we just put whatever we had on hand into the mix. Nutmeg? Sure, that works. Cinnamon? Yup, sounds good. Mysterious Japanese spice that doesn't have a label anymore? Yeah, why not. Chili? Yup, gotta have that chili in there! Honestly, it sounds bad but the result was delicious and that's not only the wine talking.

On Thursday we set everything ready and began our night in a quiet and sophisticated way. We had some wine, tried the rancid French cheese (which was delicious by the way) and just relaxed a bit. Honestly, the first hour or so was pretty tame and it looked like we could pull this 'sophisticated' thing off... And then alcohol happened.

I don't know how or why it happened but suddenly a party of eight turned into sixteen or so and it seemed as if everybody was invited. Didn't matter - we had enough room and enough cheese to go around. Soon we were playing silly party games that for some reason were much more fun than they originally seemed. I think a part of it was the fact that we had three Finns in the bunch and they get strangely competitive while playing any kind of games. Really, we were playing 'Who Am I?' (or 'Amnesia' or whatever it's called in different places) and they got really into it, yelling and even threatening their co-players with violence. Yup, Finns are pretty bloodthirsty when it comes to competitions... except we weren't competing... but whatever. 

Soon all thought of 'sophisticated' went out the window and we were just one hot mess. How did it happen, I don't even know. I just know that at one point wineglasses were tipping over, post-it notes went flying everywhere and there was a heated debate about the toffee. Some said it was caramel, some said it was fudge, Tytti and I insisted it was toffee and it all turned into a drunken 'You don't know what'cha talkin' about!' shouting match. We still had to go to school the next day but it seemed as if we'd all conveniently forgotten it. I have to say though that it was one of the more tame parties I had in my room - even with the shouting and promises of violence.

The next morning was... interesting. My room was a mess, I felt like I'd eaten a bunch of sand and as I went to the bathroom I discovered that the floor was covered in salt. Well... that was interesting to say the least... Why was there salt on my floor? Uh... I think it had something to do with someone spilling a bit of red wine one someone else's yukata and everyone throwing some salt on the stain. In the end we successfully managed to cover my room in salt but at least the stain came out. Thank god Japanese wine is 99% water!
To be honest, not much of note happened that night. We just had fun and stayed up too late. But that was the first of our weekly parties so I thought I'd mention it. Just as a prelude for what's to follow. Main point of this story: we tried to be sophisticated adults and failed hard. I guess it's borderline impossible to be sophisticated as an exchange student. Or maybe it was just us... It was probably us. 

...we ran out of change

At work we have a radio in our work space and that radio is always tuned to a specific station. It's one of the more popular (?) stations that plays both retro music and recent hits. You could have a song from the 70s followed by Justin Bieber's latest 'hit' and there's not much talking which suits us just fine: wouldn't want to listen to a talk show while trying to help an overweight patient walk. I think it would just be distracting. But why did I even start talking about the radio? Well, because they play a lot of Robbie Williams... and every time I listen to a song of his I'm reminded of the one time I kind of went to a concert of his.

The year was 2013. It was Summer. And I decided to volunteer again. A friend recommended that I could try to volunteer at a concert - they were always looking for people to work in the booths serving drinks - and as it happened Robbie Williams was coming to Estonia that summer. I'm not a huge fan but I generally like his songs. He is this weird kind of artist for me in that I don't particularly love any of his songs but he also doesn't have a single song that I dislike. I could probably listen to most of his songs without wanting to switch stations but I don't have any of his songs in my playlist. But I can't deny that he is a pretty big name and I was pretty pumped that I would get to see him for free. Sure, I had to work during the concert but if I was lucky I could maybe work in a booth close to the stage so I would still get to see the concert. Besides, I was still getting payed for this so I was content.

When the day of the concert arrived I headed to Tallinn and got my free T-shirt and coin purse. The organizers showed me to my booth which was right on the side of the stage. It was a pretty good spot: not too close but I could still see what was going on onstage. Perfect! The day was starting off just great... and then they introduced me to my booth-buddy. Yeah, we had to work in pairs because the workload would have been too much for one person. My booth-buddy, however, didn't look like he'd be much help. He had no experience serving drinks and was shocked when he found out that if the keg of beer ran out we had to switch to a new one on our own. I had been working in a bar for a while so I knew that switching kegs was a pain in the ass but it was not rocket science. I offered that I'd do it myself if it was too difficult for him and he looked relieved at that.

Before we even begun serving drinks I noticed a few... issues. In addition to serving beer and cider we also had bottled water, lemonade and energy drinks... that we had to pour out into cups. It was strictly forbidden to serve anything in bottles. Even water. It seemed a bit... odd, considering most people don't usually down a 0.5 L cup of water in one go. You want to save the bottle so you could take a sip every now and then. But no. Apparently plastic bottles are a tremendous safety hazard and thus were completely forbidden in the concert grounds. I could already tell this was going to create some issues.

Another thing I noticed was that the organizers had given us about 50 euros worth of change. That didn't seem nearly enough. We could only take cash and most of the drinks were around 1.50-2.50 €. I had a feeling that we were going to run out of change pretty soon. But the organizers assured us that if we ran out we could just call them and they would bring us some more. Okay then... I guess I had no other choice but to trust them.

Sure enough, just a few minutes after the gates were opened we ran into our first 'What do you mean you don't sell water in a bottle?!' person.

'Sorry, but we're not allowed to sell bottles.'

'But that's stupid!'

'I know.'

'But I don't want you to pour it into a cup!'

'I understand but-'

'I'm going to another booth!'

Well, good luck with that... None of us were allowed to sell bottled drinks but people kept going in circles, trying to look for a way to get water in a bottle. I had several people come to me going 'Hey, the girls in the other booth wouldn't sell us a bottle of water. But you guys will, right?' No, we couldn't. We weren't allowed to. But nobody seemed to believe us. They seemed to think we were doing this on purpose. Like we were just mean people who didn't want anyone to have bottles because... reasons, I guess...

Soon enough we ran into our second problem: we didn't have enough change. Sure enough everyone was paying with 5 and 10 € bills and we ran out of change pretty quickly.

'What do we do now?!' my booth-buddy asked with a panicked look in his eyes, 'Do we close the booth? We can't serve people anymore!'

I suggested we call the organizers. After all, they told us they would help if we ran out. So while he was making the call I kept on serving people. I told them we didn't have change and most of them were understanding of the situation. A lot of them went through their wallet and found the exact amount to pay for their drinks. Some of them told us to just keep the change and not worry about it. And then there were the assholes.

'What do you mean you don't have change?! I want my drink and I want my 50 cents back!'

'I know and I'm sorry but we just don't have anything to give back. If you could just find 4.50 in your coin-purse-'

'Why should I?! You guys should have organized this thing better! Didn't you consider that you might run out of change?!'

'Well, we're just volunteers here. We didn't organize anything...'

'Sure, sure! I bet you were payed to say that.'

'Uh... we are actually being paid to serve drinks-'

'Then why aren't you doing that?! You know, you really suck at organizing this thing! Next time you should put more work into it!'

Yeah... sure... except there wouldn't be a next time. I understood that people were angry - they just wanted their drinks and we weren't being very helpful. But at the same time there was not much we could do. We weren't the ones organizing this event and all the booths had the same problem that we did. We were just as upset about it as our customers. But angry people rarely care about who to take their anger out on - they just want someone to know how they're feeling and are willing to tear out anyone's throat to do so. It's easy to take your anger out on some powerless server who's only crime is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As I was trying to calm the angry mob gathering in front of the booth, my buddy ran to me in a blind panic. Apparently the organizers had also run out of change. They had had 300 € worth of change and that was all gone already. We were on our own. My booth-buddy, who turned out to be terribly neurotic, decided to solve our problem by taking money out of our tip jar. You can guess how happy that made me.

Relief came when the concert actually started. Nobody wanted drinks anymore and the booth was pretty much empty. I took the chance to take a little walk and see the concert. I could still hear everything from my booth but I wanted to get closer. The concert was actually pretty awesome. I remember there was a lot of gold, fireworks and shiny things. People were loving it and honestly, it was pretty awesome. I don't regret going to volunteer in the slightest, even though it was a pain in the ass for most of the time.

The worst part was yet to come, though. After the concert was over we were not allowed to serve drinks anymore. Any drinks. Yes, that meant water. People were still on the concert grounds, looking for a sip of water, but we weren't allowed to give them anything. We were supposed to stop selling drinks exactly at 23.00. I decided to push the limit a bit and at 23.10 I was still selling bottles of water... until our supervisor came along and told us to stop... We did, but there were still people around and those people were not happy campers. Some actual quotes from these thirsty people:

'What do you mean you can't serve me? I just want some beer, you heartless bitch!'

'Okay, I get how it is. Name your price. Everyone has a price.'

'What if I jump over this counter now and choke you for a bit. Would you give me water then?'

Yeah, lovely people. Honestly, I was called a bitch several times but the most offensive quote was from the guy who asked me what my price was. I was so pissed that I just threw a bottle at him for free and told him to get lost. We weren't supposed to sell water but nobody said anything about giving stuff out for free.... I think that was a given but I hoped two bottles wouldn't be missed...

Honestly, I think it was idiotic that we couldn't even sell water to people who were obviously thirsty after several hours of jumping up and down. The nearest store that had water was several km away and it was only natural people wanted some refreshment before heading off. Still, rules were rules and we were meant to follow them even if they made no sense. I guess sometimes that's just how the world works. In the end we managed to avoid getting choked (or stabbed) by our customers and as the dust settled we realized that even though my booth-buddy had given out a sizable amount of our tip jar, we still had a bunch of money left.

'What should we do with this? Should we just give this to the organizers as well?' he asked with a look of confusion.

I think that was the most idiotic thing I'd heard all year and that was the year I was working in a sleazy bar. I tried my best to make my face look blank and explained to him how tips worked. I'm sure he wasn't a complete moron - he'd probably (hopefully) tipped someone in the past as well - but he'd never received a tip and didn't really know how to handle it. In the end though we split the meager amount of money we'd accumulated during the course of the night and I had enough cash for a bus ticket back home.

So, in the end I think the night was largely a success: I got paid, got to see a concert for free and I even had enough cash in the end to get back home. Would I do it again, though? No. Not unless it was organized better. You wouldn't believe how angry people get when you deny them bottles, water or change. Really, people! Just relax and don't shoot the messenger! It's easy to take out your anger on the person standing in front of you - even if you know they're not the root of the problem - but one must always remember that venting on someone powerless to stop you is kind of a asshole thing to do. So just don't.