Bartender
Chronicles By Paxton Willis
40 TYBEE BEACHCOMBER | FEB 2019
Selective Hearing
We all have selective hearing, but what I’m talking about isn’t the way your mother defines it. When you’re a kid, you’re so rapt in the world around you that
your little brain can only process so much. You choose involuntarily to only process exciting and pleasurable things, and likewise dangerous and scary things.
For example, you’re in the yard with your friends, running as wild as banshees on Adderall, the dome of youthful stimuli surrounds you. Then, a sentence
cuts through the buzzy frantic din of kid hood. Its volume, two notches above the rest, shouts “Get your ass inside for dinner!” The record screeches, the
birds jettison their trees, and with a glance into each other’s fearful eyes, you and your crime partners bolt toward your respective homes, post haste. It’s the
involuntary selection of auditory cues that is a pure instinct. It’s most likely a derivative of an ancient fight or flight caveman wrinkle inside your soft skull.
That’s one type, but there’s another…
Voluntary Selective Hearing is what we pick up in adulthood as a way to keep sanity, whether in family or industry. You hear everything your children say,
but if you chose to listen to it all, you would think you were raising deranged psychopaths, when you are most likely not, I hope. I don’t have children, but I’ve
overheard them speak to each other, and it’s a good thing they don’t have money or a developed body. The world would be quite dangerous, and kids can be
evil to each other, holy shit.
In the service industry, you select what you will give attention, as to preserve your own sanity, or to force efficiency. I’ve had people use 23 words to tell me
what it is they would like to drink (rum and coke). The things I’ve heard and chosen to ignore … whoo! This isn’t about those little anecdotes and the purpose
isn’t to put anyone’s business on front street, so exhale you seedy devils, you have client privilege, at least here on this page :)
The typical cross section of a bar shift spans a wide swath of intrigue and mundanities of everyday life. Personal stories meant to only be heard by the ear of
their neighbor. Lurid details of illicit action and loose morality. Personal triumphs and demoralizing defeats, all before the stroke of 10pm. You hear everything,
but you select what you retain. The Pub-ocratic Oath of “do no harm, unless they’re jerk offs and need to learn manners” is real. The cache of info about the
island that exists in every barman’s brain, terabytes of gossip, truths, untruths, anger and joy are encrypted for the most part, as long as all parties abide
the code. Yet, even when code is abided, there are work arounds and back doors - alcohol being the easiest breach of the firewall. On the whole, unlike your
cloud based data network, your details remain safe under the Pub-ocratic Oath, unless the overhearing party is a party to the party you’re partaking in, partly
because you party too much without partition between the particular part you don’t want imparted on said parties. You know what I mean…
See you in Part 2.