Here's a little story about a recent trip a friend an I took to a local bar. Us "librarians" struck again. (That's what they used to call us at another local bar we frequented. For the record, we are not actual librarians. Although we may look like librarians, we prefer to think of ourselves as the "hot librarians" that could toss aside our spectacles and let down our hair at any second.)
So my friend and I decided to go to this local bar, the World War II Club in Northampton, MA. It is well known, but we had never been there ourselves. It was a Sunday night and we were restless.
The place seems to have no windows, and therefore hard to tell from the outside if it's open. We walk up to the door and take a look at the posted hours:
It was currently about 10:05 when we arrived. According to the door, they're closing. But then we noticed the faint sound of music from inside. So we decided to be bold and try going in, meanwhile bracing ourselves in case someone shouts at us "WE'RE CLOSED, CAN'T YOU READ THE SIGN?"
As we enter timidly, no one shouts at us. There's live music going on, and people sitting and drinking. Looks open enough, but perhaps we'd missed last call. We walk up to the bar and my friend asks the bartender "are you closing soon?"
He seems confused.
Bartender: No... we're open until 1 am.
Friend: Oh, good! We thought you were closing soon. The door says 10 pm.
Bartender: WHAT? What are you talking about? It's always been 1 am. WHERE does it say that?
Friend: On the door! *I'm nodding to concur*
Bartender: WHAT?!?!
*Bartender runs away at light speed for the front door. We giggle. Bartender comes back.
Bartender: It doesn't say 10 pm on the door. It says 1 am. Gosh, you had me scared for a moment there, I thought we were turning away business!
My friend and I look at each other, confused. Could it be possible that we BOTH read it wrong?
I went outside to look at the door. Yup, my eyes aren't lying, it says 10 pm. I take out my camera to take a picture to prove to the bartender what we're talking about. At that point he comes out, my friend in tow.
We are ALL looking at the door at this point. And he says, "See? It says 1 am" as he's pointing at the piece of paper that says "no entry after 1 am".
I point at the lettering painted onto the door. RIGHT HERE. It clearly says
Sunday: 1 - 10 pm
He finally sees it. "OH MY GOD! I have worked here for THREE YEARS and have never noticed that! NO ONE has ever noticed that before! I wonder how much business I've lost on Sunday nights because of that!"
So we all got a good laugh. The bartender decides to fix the problem by scraping off the zero in the "ten" so that it now says 1:
He was happy that it was resolved and went back inside to tend to his customers. We didn't have the heart to tell him at the time that it now appeared that the bar was not open at all on Sundays, or appeared to be open for perhaps a nanosecond before closing again. 1-1pm doesn't make a whole lot of sense, either.
So we took matters into our own hands and scraped off the "PM":
Still not perfect, but definitely a step closer to accuracy.
I know from experience at my job that 99.9% of people DO NOT EVER look at the business hours posted in front of their face as they walk into an establishment, they just try the door and if it opens, they're in business. But still. Seriously, NO ONE ever noticed that?
I can only wonder how many people with "an eye for detail" the bar has turned away over the years. Probably not many. You're welcome anyway.
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