Ridiculous True Stories From a College Bar Bouncer

College Bouncers
Jason Hoffman/Thrillist
Jason Hoffman/Thrillist

College-town bouncers have seen some shit, man: more than proctologists. More than mercenaries in war-torn countries. More than Led Zeppelin groupies. Serious, serious shit.

To them, the daily rigamarole of bodily fluids, profanity, and fluid-laced profanity that your average bouncer faces is child's play. I enlisted the help of one grizzly bounce-person who spent six years at one of the country's wildest party colleges (HINT: it rhymes with Schmenn Schtate Schmuniversity) to detail what it's really like to live the bouncer life while d-bags live the college life. We'll call him "Bruno." He looks like a Bruno. These are his wild and crazy stories. Giddy up!

Cop Car
Scott Davidson/Wikimedia

The kid who stole the cop car

"Maybe the craziest thing I saw -- just because of the balls needed to pull off a feat like this -- was this skinny little scrawny dude who literally drove off in a cop car after a fight broke out outside. I've actually seen this once at a frat party in Indiana, PA, too, but I never thought I'd see it again.

"A bunch of police -- campus po, real po, all the po -- came to break up this fight that was happening outside. One of them jumped out of their car, and for some dipshit reasons left the keys in the ignition. In the fray, this kid just hopped inside and SLAMMED it in reverse. Half the force chased after him, and the crowd that was fighting just scattered. It was pure madness. To this day, I don't know what happened to the kid."

The vomit purse

"So a lot of the crazy shit I saw happened outside on line, when I was working the door. We obviously had an official policy that we'd turn down anyone who was visibly intoxicated. But let's be real: if we adhered to that strictly, our bar would be empty. One rule we did follow was that if someone was puking, we would definitely not let them in. I mean, that's pretty reasonable, right?

"This one girl who was in a big group was teetering over when she was a few slots away from the door, and I caught her -- I shit you not -- puking in her little flowery Vera whatever-you-call-it handbag, to make sure we didn't see it. I mean, like, multiple times. Trying to cover it up. Honestly, I let her in. That was commitment. She really wanted to be inside. Hopefully she threw away the handbag."

The helicopter mom who was definitely too old for this shit

"One time this girl's mom came and pulled her out of the club. For real. At the bar. At college. Everyone stood around and watched. I cannot think of a more embarrassing scenario. I really wonder what she did, and even more so, how her mom knew she was at our shitty bar. Was her mom mad she was at our shitty bar?" 

Fans fighting
Andy Kryza/Thrillist

Same fake, different hat

"This one dude tried this horrendous fake ID out on me, and I turned him down. But I was cool and let him keep the ID. He came back in line, like, 20 minutes later with a baseball hat on. Same clothes. Same ID, same everything. I laughed my ass off and kicked him to the curb.

"About an hour later, the dude came with big hunter's beanie on. In the end of August. I took the ID then, and told him he was an idiot. At least get a fake 'stache, something."

The sports fight that broke two iPhones

"It was bound to happen sooner or later: during a big game, a big group of rival fans came in and started stirring up shit. This is one day I was working inside, and was on watch the second these kids walked in. We never, ever had a fight inside during my first four years... until this.

"It just started out of nowhere. All of a sudden one of our fans came up behind the dude with the biggest mouth and just whaled him with a bottle of beer. It shattered. There was pandemonium. I was obviously in the shit then, but the one lasting image I have is of two dudes holding each other's throats and with their free hands just whaling on each other with their iPhones. Shattering the phones, glass and blood and plastic flying everywhere. And this was when iPhones were still a new thing. It was high-stakes. But it does answer the question: yes, people have used iPhones as blunt weapons. I saw it."

The **ahem** teeth thing

"Probably the most memorable thing I saw was this couple that just started getting really nasty in the corner of the bar when we had a DJ up there. They were surrounded by people, but our manager -- with her eagle eyes -- spotted the girl going down on the dude... right there in the bar. We all went over and confronted them, and we must have surprised her because apparently she sunk her teeth just a little too hard into the dude's member, judging by his reaction. I felt bad overall. For ruining his good time and for making his dick get bit."

The rogue poop

"One night after the crowd cleared, we found a lone turd sitting in the middle of the dance floor. Just a single, random piece of shit -- like it was modern art or something, just sitting under the strobe lights and the glitter, just sitting there, dead center of the room.

"Like some Andy Warhol shit. Literally."

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Wil Fulton is a staff writer for Thrillist. Bouncers still hate him. Follow him @wilfulton.