The drive down to the bar, located about 20 minutes - and several hundred WIC checks - west of where I live, was alarmingly portentous. I should've known that hearing Locomotive Breath from beginning to end on a beautiful day was a sign. Silly me. So entranced by the flute I was, I didn't even consider the omens all around.

Continuing on my merry way past downtown, past Coors Field, past the highway, I had to stifle some laughs once I realized the suuuuper-shady neighborhood I found myself in might just be my new place of employ. Boarded-up buildings, chained liquor store cum pharmacies, cavalier driving styles and not a Starbucks in sight...a bit of a stretch from 43rd and Broadway. Though, come to think of it, the people were shaped the same.

And by "shaped," I mean rounded. Seems fried food is popular throughout this great land.

Ah.

Anyway, yes. I pulled up to the establishment, parked and sauntered in through a dark doorway to find...a bar. A nice bar, kind of long in the tooth, smoky but clean, wood-paneled, and with more than a few tables of moustachioed "day-laborer drunks" (Kuki's words; I would never dream to characterize someone such. I'm mature. I would use the term "alcoholics." Or "Baby Daddys.")

I found Kuki behind the bar. A sixty-year old in pink knit and a blonde mullet, she handed me an application and said, "I just want your name and social and any bartending school - the rest, forget about it."

Naturally, I wrote "Cheese."

When I was done with the exhaustive process, we adjourned to the back pool room where her first question was if I smoked. I said, "No."

Thus began a forty-five minute discussion about the upcoming smoking ban in Colorado. As of July 1, most bars and restaurants here will be enjoyed without the vile weed. Also, smokers will not be able to congregate within 15 feet of the establishment's door, so those at bars in crowded areas, like LoDo, will be made to walk two or three blocks into residential areas to enjoy their tobacco products.

In Kuki's eyes, this encroachment on our civil liberties is tantamount to Nazism. I kid not at all. She is applying to be considered a tobacco retailer, thus loopholing herself out of the ban, but thinks that if she doesn't get it - her 19-year old business will be dead in six months.

"Pretty sobering stuff," I offered. (No takers.)

Mullet aside, she was a with-it chick with some interesting - albeit highly, erm, inflammatory - takes on the ban, and how it will lead to - among other things - more wife-beating, more guns and more prisons. Also, more peeing on trees because, well, you know guys - they'll pee anywhere. The leaps in logic were fast and flawed, but it was an invaluable eye-opener into the industry's understandable state of panic.

During this talk, she let me know she had already started another girl yesterday curses!, but would call me in a week or two if this new employee couldn't "handle the crowd." And oh, what a crowd. All men. All day-laborers. All alcoholics. All regulars. Not particularly threatening, as a group, but would definitely put me through my paces. She charges $2.30 a well drink, $2.50 a bottle and $3.25 a draft - and she said most of them cash their paychecks at the bar, and tips are low because pockets are empty.

She also said that sometimes they chip in, get a hotel room and continue partying. Ten bucks I'm invited.

That said, I would totally take this job. This woman knows her way around her business. She's honest, she's straight-forward and she's tough. Just like I like my mulletted grannies!

Naturally, my drycleaning bills would ratchet, but if ever there was a blue-collar joint to earn my stripes - this would be it. Besides, I think the dress code would be, um, rather casual.

One further point of note, Kuki told me to step-to if I want a bar job, as there'll be massive lay-offs starting July 1.

Through the shuffling madness, I am still driving.