By Maude Perkins
Boy am I glad I wrote all that nice gooey stuff last week because I don’t think I’ve ever had a more trying time in terms of restraining my tongue and wishing I owned an automatic weapon than I have since then. Yesterday alone, I uttered the words “I’m going to shoot up this place” no less than once every fifteen minutes. Luckily, I work in a coffee shop and not an airport, or else I’d be writing (or not) from a torture room right now, which, don’t get me wrong, my editor would more than encourage for the sake of fresh unparalleled material.
Alas, I am just a weaponless barista, teetering on the sanity fence, ready to fall clear off the next time I am expected to read the mind of some yuppie scum on a cell phone who mouths her order to me and then gets pissed when the drink is made incorrectly. Silly of me not to assume that when someone mouths “Grande Mocha,” they really mean, “Venti non-fat, no-whip, three-pumps of mocha Mocha.” This may seem comical now, but at the time I wanted so badly to kick this woman in the fucking head. Repeatedly.
Or perhaps my good nature will crack the next time the regular customer with the grande non-fat, easy-foam latte impatiently leans over our bar and lets us know he’s got a train to catch. Well, then come in five minutes earlier you fucking idiot. This is the same guy who comes in on weekends, sits around with his latte and then leaves his garbage on the table. There’s a strategy behind that trash can sitting right by the exit you lazy son-of-a-bitch.
But then again, I think my biggest sanity-tester this week was a fully capable blonde woman who opened the door and requested assistance. Thinking that she, like so many others, merely needed me to hold the door for her while she pushed her stroller through, I walked around the counter and opened the door, immediately to notice that there was no stroller in sight.
Catching me entirely off-guard, this special woman proceeded to give me her drink order – not one, but two drinks – one of which was an eggnog latte (need I say more), and the other was – get this – an iced half-decaf, double-tall two percent, three Splenda latte. Then she handed me her credit card.
Completely taken aback, I forced myself to remain blank-faced as I walked back to the register to assist the line of customers that had shuffled in during this door transaction. With only two of us working at the time, I nearly fashioned myself a gun out of rubber bands, spoons and whole beans to take aim at this blonde wench as she did an eager dance outside the store window. I thought better of it when I realized I would feel unsatisfied knowing that a projectile bean could not actually kill her.
In the end, I refused to walk her drinks to the door. I made her take the fifteen steps inside, which was a major inconvenience of course, and on the way out, she had the balls to smile and say, “It got so busy in here!” I turned to Velma and said, “That bitch is getting written about.”
Maude Perkins is The Beachwood Reporter‘s pseudononymous service industry affairs editor currently serving time as a store supervisor for a large, publicly-held corporate coffee chain. Catch up with the rest of her heartwarming stories here.
Posted on November 19, 2006