Summary

The narrator, Darcy Barrett, begins by recounting her lesson learned through bartending: “When a group of men are walking in, you should work out which one is the alpha” (7). She notices a group of fraternity boys piling into the bar, and one of them makes a joke about her short hair. She fires back at him, impressing him and leading him to ask her out on a date. She rejects him but begins pouring their drinks. She notes that these kind of guys “love being treated like dirt… Their leader continues to flirt with me, determined to wear me down, but I walk away midsentence” (9). Holly, another girl working at the bar, tells the narrator how happy she is that they’re working together because she feels safer. Darcy imparts more of her wisdom, such as the importance of never wearing your real...