Today’s podcast, the third in a broken series that’ll recur here and there, talks about a sudden twist in my new job as a server at a pizza joint—which is that I’m no longer a server. I’m a bartender!

            In this episode I’m giving you portraits of the two most interesting characters to ask me for liquor over the past few days.

            I’ve always been kinda voyeuristic at bars, prone to eavesdropping and reporting back to you about it, doing this little imaginative exercise of trying to extrapolate whole personalities or lives from the little snippets of conversation I overhear. Odd little behaviors I see from across the room. One of my all-time favorites, for instance, was when I was at Redbar on a Whiskey Wednesday and overheard a woman beside me mournfully resist an offer of cocaine.

“I can’t,” she said, “I’m breastfeeding.”

            Now, as a bartender, I hear remarks like that every day—but it isn’t just snippets anymore. I hear the whole conversation. Sounds like an awful invasion of privacy, I know, and while I’m quick to argue that I’m right there, and that people shouldn’t air their grievances in public if they don’t wanna be overheard, I’m nonetheless aware of the ethical gray area here of paying close attention to what people reveal to one another while sitting here tipsy and unguarded.

            All that and more is explored in Pizza Story: Part III.

            I hope you enjoy the episode and, once again, if you do enjoy it, you’ll be doing me a tremendous favor by following this link to Apple Podcasts and giving it a star rating!