My Money, Ha ha !

This past weekend I went to Gainesville with my prima esposa, my cousin, and two other friends.

We went mainly because my brother and his roommate Jaime were throwing a party, but also because it was "Classic Weekend" here in Orlando and we do not really support that. Anything to get out of Orlando, though.

All in all it was a good weekend but we cannot forget the drama, what with brother unlucky included and all.

The party was supposed to be kept at a Vietnamese restaurant called Chop Stiks. Up until two days before the event, after fliers and Cd's were made advertising that venue, the manager, whom we will call Teetee, decided to cancel. She claimed she had a "family reunion to attend, and that she had forgotten about it."

Despite brother unlucky and Jaime's efforts to work out some sort of agreement in order to avoid a last minute change, they were still forced to do exactly that. Teetee came to them with a sob story about how badly she felt that she had to come out at the last minute, and said they could use another place she owns instead. This was a hispanic restaurant called El Norteno and it was just down the road.

The manager of El Norteno was a man named Martin, who was more than willing to work with them for the event. He was very cool and they came to an agreement that they would pay $400 ahead of time for the venue and then at the end of the night they would split the money made at the bar 45/55 - giving him the 55 percent. The verbal agreement was made, amongst brother unlucky, Jaime, and two other people from UF Caribsa, who were also helping out with the event.

With this, Martin and his bartenders were supposed to clear out the venue before the party started at 11 o'clock. Since it was a restaurant, the party had to begin after closing which was at 10 30, and he therefore agreed to allow the party to go until 4am. (Usual G-ville parties end at 2.) This gave them a 30 minute grace period to begin cleaning out and my brother and his friends were willing to help.

Sure enough, when we got there - after 10 30- nothing had been moved. We got phone calls that Martin was sitting around for the past half an hour watching Novelas and drinking beer.

Upsetting incident number one.

We already had folks waiting to get in when we arrived. The music at that point was not even on as yet, and we now had to quickly move around the furniture before we had too big a line outside.

My prima esposa and I worked the door for most of the night. We collected the money from everyone who entered - minus the 500 people some girls from the CSA e-board decided to let in for free. Their main concern at the beginning of the party was to take pictures. Hence, we decided to take over their positions and we did not mind it one bit. After all, we would much rather greet our supporters as opposed to halitosis who was sure to send them right back home the moment she opened her mouth and whispered "ten dollars."

Before the end of the night, prima esposa and I had counted more than $1300 in 20's alone and let the CSA girls replace us for like the last 30 minutes. By 3 a.m., Martin was turning on the lights, and by 3:15 a.m., the party was basically cleared out.

Upsetting incident number two.

Of course we were the last people left in the party, and at that time the DJ played songs like "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus, just for fun. After which, he played my favourite song - fireflies. This made my night; but only until dark lord Martin completely turned the success of night 180degrees.

When it was time to count the money in the cash register at the bar, cool guy Martin had turned into a monster. Amongst him and his workers, it was complaint after complaint.

Complaint number 1: "The bartenders never got any tip."

Complaint number 2: "Two of the flimsy little tables are broken."

Sidenote: He wanted us to pay $350 for each table. So we were supposed to pay $700 for two tables that were not broken, and we only paid $400 for the entire place? And the tables were not even supposed to be in there when we arrived? The guy is clearly not dealing with a full deck.

He never even understood that we were going to tip them for good business and were willing to pay for the tables, but just wanted to split the money first. Out the window after the following events.

After his and the bartenders' bitching for far too long, he finally agreed to allow us to count up the receipts. He handed over a handful of them and watched as Peter counted them up. There were $200 in receipts. But that only accounted for the drinks that were bought with credit card, and my brother and his friends alone spent more than that at the bar. Nevertheless, he sat there with a smirk on his face as he agreed to let Jaime open the register and take out the money.

There was $12 in the cash register.

Upsetting incident number three!

Martin had already went in the register, took out, and pocketed all of the money that was made at the bar. As if that was not shady enough, he knew there was nothing in there but still allowed Jaime to count up receipts and go in the cash register as if it was some sort of joke.

Little did I know, Teetee had showed up at the party at some point in the night, went to Martin, and told him not to give us any of the bar money. The same Teetee that was supposed to be out of town for the alleged "family reunion" which was why we could not have used her venue for the party.

I had to hold back three angry Jamaican men at one point or another. But after much cussing, anger, hotheadedness, whispering in Spanish, and shadiness, we decided to cut our losses and just take the 45% out of that 200.

Thereafter, Martin pulled out a large stack of money and gave us $90. Ninety dollars! Unheard of. There were more than 150 people in that party, and he wanted us to believe that only $200 was spent at the bar?

As if that was not bad enough, the money Jaime counted from the cash register that I was working was $1000 exactly - and that includes 1's, 5's and 10's. That means that on top of taking out the money from the bar, Martin had at some point taken out and pocketed some money from the register in the front as well.

Unbelievable.