You Don't Have To Go Home, But You Can't Stay Here

The other night I threw out a rowdy group of drunk patrons. They were all weight-lifters over six fet tall and I threw them all out by the seats of their beefy pants. They were so impressed that they made me their queen and built me a house made of chocolate that had chocolate fondue fountains gently arcing out of toffee basins amid fields of strawberries.

I am a dirty, rotten liar.

I did throw some people out of the pub, but they were 12. And sober. And inches shorter than me. And scary as hell. My bosses T and C live above the pub with their son, 12 (13?) year-old O. T and C went out for the night when I was working leaving O alone with his friend Ol. At about 10:30 a group of 12 year-olds showed up and asked for O. I had no way of getting in touch with O, and they said that he wasn't expecting them. So I said there was nothing that I could do. They didn't look like they could be friends of O's, O has a mod haircut and is no toughie. He respects his parents and walks the dog and is very polite. When I say "how are you doing?" He always replies "Well, and how are you?" These kids were to into being cool.
They left, or so I thought. They came back and sat on the porch area and smoked. A) Kids under 18 aren't allowed in pubs if they are unaccopanied by a parent and B) if they smoke on the pub property they get us in trouble as well as themselves. There was only one guy in the pub besides me. An older man named L who is probably in his late 60's, early 70's. He might have been a tough guy back in his youth but no longer. I noticed them smoking and said that I didn't want to be the one to kick them out. L responded by jumping to his feet and saying that he would do it. I figured that I had to toughen up sometime so I said no, I would do it.
I went out there and said that they would have to leave, especially if they were going to smoke. The kid smoking tried to claim that he was 16 (the legal smoking age) but didn't have ID. So he stubbed out his cigarette and he and his mates got up to leave. As I was walking indoors one of them called out "just kidding! he's only 12!"
I turned around icily and said sarcastically "No kidding."
They didn't like that.
They moved the chairs around as they were leaving. I could hear it but not see it and decided that taking the bait would be worse than having to fix the chairs around the tables later.
They came back 5 mintues later and the Kid threw a passport onto the bar in front of me, It was a picture that could have been him and the dates were right for him to be 16. He said "don't you believe that I am 16?" and I started to say "I dunno" but L, clearly thinking that he would help out the nice barmaid in need, jumped up and barked "What are you doing here! get out!"
Which was the WORST thing that he could have done. These kids were looking for some victim to get into their faces. They WANTED someone to threaten them, to make them feel tough when they called the persons bluff.
They left but kept coming back and the one kid, the ringleader who had been smoking and who threw the passport in my face, would fling open the door and scream insults at L. They were hilarious insults because they were English insults and made noooooo sense to me:
"You, go back to hangover court!" (rehab for alcoholism?).
"Your dripping nose, dripping into the burgers at princess court, do you remember?" (what?).
Ultimately his mates decided that he had gone too far and persuaded him leave the pub alone. Only one of the kids had even hint of a mustache and 2 of them had those uber-gelled faux-hawks (clearly future popped collars and cubic zirconia ear studs).
I said previously that the insults themselves were funny, but L came off as a toothless old man, all bark and no bite. He likes to tell me and the other barmaids tough stories about his wild youth and revel in what he sees as our admiration of him being a retired bad-ass (not really, we all think that he's full of crap but we all put up with it because we don't really care). He had told me all about some guns that he had carried while in Nigeria in the 60's and the lion that he shot and bushwhacking around the Yukon while working for BP etc etc.
Bored adolescents with too much time on their hands and brittle pride who haven't yet discovered the opposite sex are scary people. If I had called the police they would have come back and done something worse (I dunno, egged the place, thrown rocks at me). There was no way that I could win that situation because they knew and I knew (and they knew that I knew) that they were willing to go farther than I was. The only way to at least tie with them is to affect an "I really don't care, but whatever, you're really not worth my time" attitude so that they don't feel like you've challenged them. And then freaking L gets in the way to protect the poor helpless barmaid who really has a much better handle on the sitaution than he does. Guh.

In other news, I got a nice new haircut! And it was cheap cheap cheap because I got it from a haircutting school. Looks nice, though it took 2 hours and made me late for work. T forgave me anyways and made fun of me for staring at my new hair in the mirror and preening.
He's also decided that he's director of my social life and has attached me and S onto some sort of pub crawl that the waterpolo club is doing (clubs get free french fries and sandwiches if they come to the pub at the same appointed time each week, and the waterpolo club comes every tuesday). Could be fun, could be awkward. We'll see.