🌻A Turd Walks Into a Bar

You asked

Photo by Chandler P. via Google Maps.

I should have known which story you nerds were going to ask for. So be it! 

Once upon a time (maybe two years ago) in a land far, far away (downtown Kansas City), Andy and I were going out for a date.

It had been a great week — nothing in particular, just good vibes — and a celebration seemed in order. Andy was downtown that afternoon for a rare in-person work engagement, so we decided to meet out for an early happy hour at our favorite fancy cocktail bar, The Monarch.

Dolled up for date night, I beat Andy to the bar by a couple of minutes. The Monarch is swanky, especially by Kansas City standards. Everything is black and white and shiny and marble, and the monarch butterfly-inspired chandelier over the bar is in fact an art installation whose origins you can read about in the menu. Your cocktail might have an ingredient in it like cascade hop-infused bruto americano or 1994 d’oliveiras verdelho madeira that even the relatively cocktail-experienced has to ask about. 

Photo from the Monarch Bar website.

I sit at the bar and order a drink. Andy arrives in his fancy downtown work clothes and does the same. We’re jiving and cheers-ing and chatting up the bartender, but something’s amiss. Something stinky.

Now, I don’t know about you, but whenever I smell a poopy type of smell, my first reaction is to not say anything. People have gas. Sewers go on the fritz. Stuff happens, and there’s no need to make anyone feel self conscious.

(Unless it’s the dogs. Then I will ruthlessly make fun of them. But I digress.)

Does this drink smell funny to you?

But the moment went on, and the smell didn’t fade, and perhaps it even got stronger. I finally brought it up. Andy smelled it too. Should we ask about it? Should we say something? This place is so fancy, it seems like they might want to address their poop stink problem.

We finally look down.

The bar at the Monarch doesn’t have a foot rail, it’s more of a step with up-lighting built into it. Under Andy’s foot, there’s some mud smeared on the step. 

Not mud.

We awkwardly ask the bartender for a rag or something to wipe up with, and he hands us a towel. But when Andy flips over his fancy kicks to get a better look at the extent of the problem, we’re greeted by not a smoosh of dog poo, but an entire turd, mostly undisturbed, perfectly crevassed in between the heel and the rest of the sole. 

An entire turd.

He grabs it with the bartender’s towel, and we stare at it, then at each other, then back at it, not sure how to proceed. What do you do with a turd at a fancy cocktail bar? 

We’re not sure how much information to reveal to the bartender. We don’t want him to underestimate the situation, and do something hazardous like drop the rag into a sink of bar glasses waiting to be cleaned. But we also really don’t want to have to reach across the bar, hand the man back his towel, and say, “excuse me sir, would you please dispose of this turd for me?”

“Here’s your towel back. There’s a turd in it.” 

Perhaps simply, “I’m so sorry” would do it? 

Honestly, I don’t remember what we said about the contents of the rag as we passed it back across the marble bar. We asked if they had Clorox wipes or something we could use to wipe up our area and hopefully be rid of the last of the smell. They said yes, just a minute, and Andy went to the restroom to deal with the shoe.

Misunderstanding, they brought the wipes to Andy in the bathroom. A woman — not the bartender — knocked on the restroom door to hand over the supplies, much to Andy’s surprise. I don’t think we ever got our floor space completely cleaned, but the removal of the source was enough to fix the smell and allow us to get back to our cocktails.

Over our next drink or two, we definitely witnessed the story being passed from one staff member to another as more employees trickled in for the evening. Everyone had the same response that you’d expect from a professional staff: nothing extreme, but enough of a smirk or giggle in our direction that we knew what they’d just been told. We didn’t mind. It was, in fact, hilarious. 

—

To this day, picturing us sitting at the swanky bar, handing the bartender the his wadded-up towel across the bar, saying “I’m so sorry, it’s a turd,” still leaves me in tears. 

I also don’t get to use the word “turd” very often, but I am not aware of any synonyms for an individual unit of poop. A… log? I’m so sorry to any polite readers irked by my language.

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