The Freaks Come Out at Night – Promo Girls

I'm pretty sure if I buy whatever alcohol they're selling one of them is contractually obligated to sleep with me

Next under the microsope: Promo girls

What genius thought up this vampiric marketing scheme? You can actually imagine the boardroom discussion. When are men most likely to buy things they don’t need? When they are drunk or when they think it will impress a pretty girl. So let’s combined the two by having scantily clad skanks sell alcohol to these men! Genius! Give that man a raise, in exchange for his SOUL!

Furthermore, at what point do they choose the promotional items to give away? Let’s see, we’ll need 4000 T-shirts (all size XXXXL), 4000 poorly stitched caps and a cubic f**kton of lanyards. I have so many lanyards I actually have to buy more keys. If you don’t know what a lanyard is, it’s those ropey/ribbony pieces of crap that douche bags carry their keys or wallet on and let hang out of their pockets ala “Dope on a Rope”. At some point in the past few years someone discovered that lanyards cost about 20 cents to make and they can retail for up to 50 bucks and so became the promotional item of choice for everything from beer, to cigarettes, to lanyards themselves and if you buy just 50 shots of tequila you get this classy lanyard free so all your friends know what a raging alcoholic you are.

But what is a promo girl without her “oh so classy” outfit. The fact that the outfits these girls have to wear stand out as being particularly skanky amongst the sea of skank that comprises most night clubs is really a tribute to the designers, who have removed any need to possess an imagination. I can’t decide whether these outfits are meant to be so skimpy or if these promo girls are buying their outfits on the instalment plan. I don’t drink and I have to say having a girl come up to me with her vagina hanging out is unlikely to get me to start, unless it’s supposed to make me feel sorry for her being unable to afford a complete dress and thus offer to buy her one.

One thing I will say there appears to be a direct correlation between the exclusivity of the brand and the quality of the women they employ. So while Moët and Johnny Walker appear to take some care in who they have representing their brands as all appear to be lingerie models or from the covers of fashion magazines; there are other brands that, either due to budget constraints or because they know they’re not fooling anyone (since their product is known to cause memory loss, internal bleeding and memory loss and is brewed in a bath tub) will take less rigour in choosing their brand ambassadors.

 

DO NOT MOVE! Their vision is based on movement

 

Thesy choose the kind of “girls” who look like they derive most of their income from testing experimental medicine and posing for “Before” pictures for plastic surgery and extreme weight loss programs. The kind of classy girl that it wouldn’t surprise you to find out that they’re pregnant while doing their promo work, not that that would stop them letting you buy them shots of tequila.

What scares me most when noticing how trampy and “less-attractive” these girls are, is that promo girls from all brands appear to travel in packs of at least two and in my experience, as limited as it is, there is always one who is definitely the ugly friend (here’s a tip she’s generally the one carrying the box of caps, t-shirts and lanyards) Now this is fine when we’re talking about the supermodel promo girls because then the “ugly duckling” could actually just be seen as someone attainable or in the league of “normal looking” people, but when it comes to the girls selling 2 buck Sambuca Shots the ugly girl is likely to be feral.

So next time you see Shrek and the Box Donkey limping your way do not make eye contact or you may turn into stone or even worse buy a lanyard.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the nightclub journey so far; next up… the DJ.

 

The Freaks come out at Night: The Bartender

Yeah that's great, but can you just serve me a drink rather?

Oh the nightclub bartender; what wonderful hole do these creatures crawl out from? Yes, I get that you think you are the centre of attention since without you no one will be able to get the one substance that makes being in this psychedelic hellhole tolerable, but that doesn’t mean I have to tolerate you.

My interactions with bartenders although limited are more frequent than I would like as at least standing at the bar waiting for service is a damn side better than being on the dance floor (to be addressed in a future rant, sorry I mean “well researched blog article”). Either it’s because I’d use any excuse to get off the dance floor or because I’m usually the “boyfriend” and getting the drinks is part of the job description given my ancestral predilection towards hunting and gathering. Regardless I find myself having to negotiate the frenetic transaction of ordering drinks.

In my time I have developed a few techniques for getting service which I have perfected to the point that occasionally on the rare instance have actually been known to work, sometimes. One such technique which is unashamedly stolen from watching too many rap videos is the “make it rain bitches”-technique, which involves waving your money around  in the air, in a fashion that would indicate that you “just don’t care”. Please note that it doesn’t really work when the biggest note you have is a crumpled up R10 ($1 for my international readers – if you exist)

Another technique is to try make eye contact with the bartenders; unrelenting and unblinking eye contact as if to draw them in like some sort of tractor beam. The drawback of this method is it can result in your just looking like some sort of creepy weirdo who actually believes he has some sort of telekinetic tractor beam vision as you stare down lady bartenders while they prance around the bar. What can make matters worse is when one of the more effeminate male bartenders catches you staring and thinks you’re trying to hit on him.

The one technique that works without fail… have huge breasts, which is a problem for me as I’m sure you can imagine. However, I have learnt to use this observation to my advantage. I normally just ask one of the more well-enchested ladies to buy my drinks for me, which has some rather awkward repercussions. First of all I’m normally ordering chick drinks for my girlfriend and her mates, and it is pretty damn hard to act smooth and debonair when you’re ordering a cosmo, three strawberry daiquiris and a screaming orgasm, worse still is one is invariably seen by your girlfriend talking to other women – big breasted women – who you then proceed to give money to.

So Mr or Miss Bartender… you may try to avoid me, you may get my order wrong, overcharge me for my order or spill most of my drink on the floor in an inane attempt at “flaring”. You may serve the attractive girl next to me who just arrived at the bar even though I’ve been there for 20 minutes and you can even “forget” to bring me my change, but I have to tell you it gives me great satisfaction paying for my drinks from money you so kindly left me in your tip jar.

Next up… let’s see… how about promo girls!