The Beautiful Woman Alone at the Bar

Long ago, when I was still underage, I met an acquaintance who worked at a bar in the vacation town where we both lived. She was very pretty, but unfortunately, she had a rotten attitude, and I only actually hung out with her a handful of times. We knew each other through mutual friends and otherwise probably wouldn't have crossed paths.

So why am I writing about her all these years later?

Because Bunny* had what I can only describe as a very Cardi B-esque occupation—and that's where this week's conspiracy begins.

Let me tell you about the curious employment of my old acquaintance Bunny.

The first time I met Bunny was at a barbecue. Not long after we were introduced, she asked me to hold her baby while she went outside to smoke a joint.

Then she disappeared.

An hour passed before Bunny finally returned to retrieve her child. Needless to say, my first impression was that she was remarkably self-centered, and the handful of interactions I had with her afterward did little to change my opinion.

Bunny seemed to have developed a remarkable talent for living through the generosity of other people. She essentially lived rent-free by housesitting for a frequently absent roommate who had plenty of money but very little spare time. This arrangement did not prevent Bunny from insulting and complaining about her benefactor at practically every opportunity.

But Bunny did have a job.

She worked nights at one of the local hot spots.

When I first learned what her job actually involved, I was both appalled and fascinated.

On busy nights, Bunny would wait around the bar alone, usually wearing a provocative dress. Eventually, a man would approach her and start flirting. Bunny would flirt back and then challenge him to a drinking contest.

It wasn't exactly a difficult sell.

Bunny weighed around 110 pounds, and accepting her challenge gave the man an excuse to continue hanging around an attractive woman who appeared eager to drink with him.

What he supposedly didn't know was that the bartender was in on the arrangement.

When the pair ordered their shots, Bunny would receive iced tea, water, or another nonalcoholic substitute. Her new companion received the real liquor.

Each shot cost somewhere around $20 to $30, as I remember it, and the man would typically pay for both his drink and Bunny's with every round.

One round became two.

Two became five.

And Bunny, miraculously, remained remarkably sober.

After roughly ten rounds, Bunny would walk away. By then, the man had potentially purchased twenty expensive "shots," half of which contained no alcohol at all. The bouncer would then approach him and tell him he was too intoxicated to remain in the establishment.

Out he went.

The entire process could reportedly unfold in less than an hour.

Bunny could then take a break, call it a night, or eventually return to the bar and wait for someone else to approach her.

And here is perhaps the strangest part: officially, Bunny was just a waitress.

As far as the payroll was concerned, she made slightly above minimum wage and received a share of the pooled tips distributed among the staff at the end of the shift. Her more unusual function at the bar was not something I imagine appearing prominently in the job description.

At the time, I found the whole arrangement astonishing. Looking back, what interests me even more is how coordinated it supposedly was. Bunny couldn't have pulled it off alone. The bartender had to know which glass was hers. The bouncer had to know when the encounter was finished. The establishment benefited every time another round was purchased.

Was Bunny's bar an isolated oddity, or was this an established nightlife hustle that simply wasn't discussed openly?

That's the part that has always made me wonder.

Maybe Bunny wasn't particularly unusual at all.

Maybe there were Bunnies working in nightlife destinations everywhere—officially pouring drinks, waiting tables, or entertaining customers, while unofficially performing a very different job.

And perhaps the real trick wasn't getting someone to buy an overpriced drink.

It was making sure he never realized there had been a trick at all.

Names have been changed to protect privacy.