Photo Credit - Rebecca Wright

Last week, I was talking to a bartender who was telling me that you should never order a mojito in his bar and I felt compelled to defend both the mojito and the desire to drink one. Here is what I said:

I will make you a mojito. No, really. You want one? I will bang that mo-fo out like nobody ever has before. Seriously. I'm not messing around.

First of all, you're asking for it, so chances are you actually want a mojito. You want to toss me $12 (at least) to pick up three bottles and throw some mint in a shaker, so I'm going to assume you're not being a d-bag about it.

Hell, even if you are. Here you go!

You haven't been rude to one of the other people waiting patiently in line to help me pay my bills. You haven't started a fight, said something racist, sexist, or homophobic. You just want a mojito.

BOOM.

Now that's an elegant drink right there, glistening in that icy collins. Don't tell me you're not impressed with the soda I poured from a sparkling silver fountain or the time I took to pick out a really sexy mint sprig. I even dramatically did the whole spank-it-on-the-back-of-my-wrist thing, and there was a burst of dew like a young girl just fell in love for the first time, so you can see I care.

That's $12, bud.

I might not be able to make you a Seabreeze if my bar doesn't stock cranberry, but if does, I'll make you the dopest one I can.

Maybe you only know three drinks and had an anxiety attack when the frantic dervish of a bartender suddenly was staring at you with the heat of a thousand suns. Maybe it was your dead mother's favorite drink and it would have been her birthday. Maybe brown and bitter isn't your bag and you get a little heartburn with a lot of citrus, so you like your daiquiri riffs served tall. Whatever, dude—I already made it!

And yeah, man, you didn't spend 15 minutes perusing my menu, and yeah, I did spend a bunch of time on it, and yes, it's clever, maybe to the point of being glib … But that's cool. I have buddies who make me feel good about how good I am at what I do and get my pop culture references. I know I'm special. I've already tricked a hot girl into dating me. I'm all set over here.

At the end of the day, we are in the service industry and are here to serve, not to be pretentious or Judgy-Mcjudgersons.