The group I camped with at Burning Man has – get ready – a mobile bar!! Yeah, it’s a small bar, on wheels, that can roll up to parties and supplement the existing bar with more drinks. Don’t you know that Burning Man is basically a week-long 24/7 open bar party? Oh boy do I miss that part. Sometimes, they squirt shots of infused vodka from plastic toy syringes into your mouth (Thanx, Dr. Playa!), sometimes they fill your cup with free champagne, sometimes (okay, multiple times) you swing by The Pickle Joint on the way home for briney infused beverages. But back to our mobile bar!
Tuesday was HOT HOT HOT. A minor dust storm and a schedule snafu left a steamy afternoon in their wake. A few of us back at camp had the idea to take the bar down the street, where another bar was slingin’ homebrews from homebros. Just down the street! A couple camps away!
Then, tragedy struck. While pulling the bar up, one tire ran over something sharp (?) and split in two. What followed was utterly hilarious:
US: Hey! Do you guys want a drink?!
PATRONS: No thanks, I’m already drunk, but do you need any help with that tire?
US: Okay, do you want a drink?
PATRONS: No thanks, I already have one, but I could jack up your bar and take a look at that tire.
WOW. This is what I mean when I say Burning Man is a bizarro world. Can’t give away a free drink, but everyone bends over backwards to help you with a flat tire. Seriously.
Humbled, we rolled our fully-stocked bar back home where it sat, having dispensed zero drinks. Is it bad when the only one who gets tipsy at your bar is the bar itself? From that flat tire, that is? Womp womp.
Okay, cut to the very next day. Not to be defeated, even by a day-long dust storm, we passed out mad drinks to people passing by on the street. Our theory was, it’s too dusty to go out to drink, but as long as you’re passing by… Well, we didn’t have to twist many arms to take drinks as people struggled to make their way home from the day.
THEN, a miracle happened: at the camp across the way, a lovely couple happened to get married! A quick sign on some scrap cardboard and bada-bing, we became their wedding reception! I, by this time in history, had had a few (okay, one Bloody Mary) and was tipsy myself. But I still did shots with the groom’s sister (who insisted “all the ladies at this bar right now have to do a shot…of something!” and mine was highly-concentrated Gatorade but I think it still counted). At sunset, we formed a circle around the couple in the center of the road and danced around them!
The moral of this story is that a mobile bar can be just as much fun and adventure…even if it doesn’t go anywhere!
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