Line conqueror

Line conqueror

Jk, bmf

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark.

“I’m not waiting in this line” I said as we approached the ride share drop off.

“Come on, I bet it will be so good inside!” my sister said with excitement.

It was the Saturday night of a long weekend and a lot of places were closed in the city – stores, restaurants, and bars – which is what brought us here to the Star casino. I am not really a gambler, I’m pretty sure my sister only enjoys mingling amongst the crowds of people but here we were within nothing else to do on a Saturday night waiting in line for the Star casino CLUB. Yes CLUB it’s intentionally in capital letters to demonstrate the audacity that we two 30 somethings were so desperate for some activity we ended up at a CLUB.

Now one would assume that you could wait inside for the club given it was inside the casino and all but of course not – why would they think so practically? It was one of those lines you approach thinking of maybe this isn’t so bad and then as you continue to try and find the end of the line you turn around to the hundreds of people ahead of you. Clearly no other venue in the area was open I thought. We stood in line for about 30 minutes, not only did it not move we were waayy to nice to folks “joining their friends” ahead of us. There was no way I could wait in this line anymore, I turned to my sister.

“I have an idea” I said and started walking towards the front of the line.

“What are you doing?!” she said.

“Let’s just try something” I responded back building up some confidence as we approached the bouncers.

Now I should mention that we were not in our home country, we moved abroad for a few years and one thing that became apparently rather quickly was that people really enjoyed our accents. That and constantly asking us “what we were” which is a whole other story – but back to the matter at hand! We approached the bouncer and waited until he let in 2 more people, damn this place must be full I thought. But I had to try regardless.

“Hey sorry I was just wondering how long you think the wait will be and how much cover is?” I asked in a very innocent voice.

“Probably at least an hour, cover is $20” he responded, less irritated that I expected.

Aww the accent.

“Awh ok. My friend and I work for Buzzfeed in New York and were in town doing a piece on the cities night life. Just trying to see if this place is worth the wait ya know?” Wow where the heck did I come up with that

Buzzfeed was poppin and maybe only in market for a few years by this point people loved the quizzes but more that they lovedddd the lists! He looked at me as if he was trying to guess if I was lying and then within a few minutes asked us to wait to the side of the line. Let in two more people HA. Then he quickly got on his radio and repeated our comments to someone on the other side,

“Just give me a few minutes, someone’s coming down” he said

Someone is coming down. Fak. Reality started to set in, I have no ID or evidence that I work for Buzzfeed, heck my driver’s license isn’t even from New York… let’s just see how this pans out, worse case we go home? I look over at my sister who has this big smile on her face like what the heck did you just do and also omg is this actually going to work? Another employee of the venue appeared from the front doors, a woman maybe in her mid-20s and very well dressed.

“Hey ladies, what’s up?” she said as she approached us.

“Yea were just here working on a piece for Buzzfeed here from New York and it’s our last night - it’s about some of top clubs/bars in the city and we were just wondering how long the wait might be, ya know if it’s worth us waiting to get in so we can include it in the article?” I said, where was this confidence coming from?

Sounded believable to me.

“Oh that’s great, just give me a minute!” she said using her radio to contact someone else.

Oh brother how many people do they need to talk this about!

A few minutes passed and I figure maybe this proposition wasn’t as compelling as I had hoped it might be. But sure enough she walked back over with a smile on her face

“Ok you ladies are good to go in”

We quickly glanced at each other in shock and then proceeded towards the door. The bouncer checked out our licenses for a few minutes, bah think think..

“Yeah we live in New York but are originally from Canada” I blurted out.

“Go ahead”

WE GOT IN!

We headed inside to pay cover argh $20 but hey, still better than waiting in line!!

“oh you’re good to head up” said the hostess.

OMG AND NO COVER

Woohooo saved $20 I thought as we entered the elevator to the club floor.

“OMG dude” my sister said looking at me in excitement.

“I know RIGHT” I replied still in a bit of shock that this was actually happening.

We got inside and ran to the washroom to debrief, gushed about how insane it was that this worked and how much more we needed to ensure we enjoyed ourselves as a result.

“How did you even think of that?!” she asked from the stall.

“Honestly I don’t even know hahahaa” I responded, not going to lie I started to feel a little guilty at this point. But this was a huge establishment! Surely our $40 was not going to put them out. I debated going back and submitting that article for Buzzfeed just for  the heck of it, but I never did.

Now the moral of this story isn’t to come up with ways to trick clubs, it’s about leading with confidence. This instance reminded me of that and I now actively work to carry that same badass energy into everything I do, even when I know I’m faking it.