Here is a word-for-word text from the guy who works the shift after mine:
“Since I’ll probably forget to tell you, I just tossed a guy for repeated flapping his arms like wings and then cackling to himself. This was after me telling him to calm down twice.”
Sometimes I’m so used to weird stuff that it doesn’t even strike me as weird.
Example:
A man walks in hold five toilet plungers. He goes over to a table and starts talking to one of the ladies there. I can’t hear everything, but I do hear this:
Him: A dollar.
Her: For all?
Him: No, no, no, each is a dollar.
“Excuse me!” I call. “Are you trying to sell those in here?”
“No!” he calls back. “Just talking to my mom…” He winks at the lady and walks out the door.
It was at least an hour before I thought to myself, “You know? Maybe that could go on the blog…”
Guy: I’ll have a medium… light roast. Whatever’s lightest. Just black, no room.
Me: Okay.
Guy: Sorry, I’m not used to this whole coffee thing.
Me: Not used to coffee and you’re taking it black? That’s impressive! Most people load it down with cream and sugar.
Guy: Well, I figure if you’re gonna take heroin you don’t want to cut it with corn syrup, you know?
Me: Yeah…! That would really… kill your high…
A 20-something-year-old guy ordered a coffee and caught up with a friend before coming to chat with me. I had to take notes as soon as it ended. Most of this is word-for-word:
Guy: How was your Thanksgiving?
Me: Great! How was yours?
Guy: Good. (pause) For me, it’s nothing about being grateful. All about the food.
Me: Really?! (laughs) Um… sure!
Guy: And it lasts for four days. I just eat for four days. And now I’m doing a three-day cleanse.
Me: Nice. Good luck!
Guy: Well, it should be easy, because the energies are all heightened in the cosmos right now.
Me: Yeah…?
Guy: Yeah! What with it being 2012 and all.
Me: Oh! Right…
Guy: They’re just swirling now. Getting really close. Don’t you feel it? The energy from the cosmos?
Me: Yeah…!
Guy: I mean, they’re getting closer and closer. We’re at the peak of our consciousness right now. Like cell phones. Cell phones are just symbolic of our consciousness connecting. You know? You pick up a cell phone and it taps into the collective consciousness that’s all around us. They’re a bridge between the mental, the physical and spiritual.
Me: Oh…
Guy: Soon, we won’t need them at all.
Me: Yeah…?
Guy: Yeah, we won’t need computers or a cell phones- just our minds. We’ll just be able to tap into the collective consciousness ourselves to communicate with other people.
Me: Wow. (pause) Do you think this will happen within our lifetime?
Guy: Oh yeah! In a just a few years!
Me: Well… that’ll be… cool!
Guy: Definitely. See you later!
Me: Bye!
One of my favorite regulars talks like his life is a poetry slam. Even if he’s not rhyming, his cadence is rhythmic and his voice sounds like a Bob Dylan song.
Today was my favorite so far. He held out two bagels and said:
I’ll have these
Toasted please
With cream cheese.
*cue finger snaps*
My job makes me thankful for things that I used to take for granted. Here are a few:
*My school bus picked me up at my house. And it was a good school district so I didn’t have to travel far.
*I have a shower and a bathroom at my house and I never have to ask if I can use the key.
*I can afford more than coffee for lunch.
*My husband is loving- I have never had to borrow a phone to call the police because I’m scared for my safety.
*I have never had to get businesses to sign a form saying that I asked for a job application.
*My parents taught me manners.
*Whenever I swipe my card there is money on it.
*My boss doesn’t make me buy him asinine drinks every single day and call him if they’re out of his favorite pastries.
*I don’t have to wear a uniform or apron.
*I am only addicted to coffee.
*I don’t work the night shift.
*Not only do I have a job, it’s a job that I love.
Happy Thanksgiving, blog-o-sphere!
There’s a guy who comes in a few times a week and always makes a really big deal about getting fresh coffee.
He calls himself a “non coffee drinker” and gets a small with a shot of flavored syrup.
“The freshest you have!” he proclaims every single time. “I only get fresh coffee.”
I smile and nod and totally ignore his request, giving him whatever’s next in line. He has no idea. Even a coffee connoisseur has a hard time telling the difference between our fresh coffee and our coffee that’s been in an insulated air-pot for a half hour. Plus, he adds so much sugar and flavor to it, there is no way he can tell how fresh the coffee is. And he is always totally satisfied.
“Ah,” he says. “Now this is fresh.”
I can’t make this stuff up.
Anyway, the other day, the pot I was using ran out.
The guy moans and laments as I get the back-up pot (which is about a half hour fresher than the one I was using before).
“Oh no! The freshest coffee!”
I kind of ignore his cries and continue to pour the newer, fresher coffee for him.
I hand his cup to him, smiling my apology, and he takes an experimental sip.
“I guess it’s okay,” he grimaces.
It was the freshest coffee he’d had in weeks.
We have a new policy here. At the end of the night, the closer has to check the bathrooms and leave the door propped open as proof.
Wanna know why?
Because a while ago, the opener at a coffee shop down the street (from a very popular international chain, ahem) found a dead guy in the bathroom.
Yep, the closer didn’t check the bathroom at the end of the night, so when the opener retrieved the key, he found that it was still locked in the bathroom, as well as a man who’d had a fatal brain aneurism.
WHAT?!
This is the Short-List of people who are not allowed back in the store:
The guy with the baseball bat for a cane.
The guy with three pigtails. (“Three-pigtail,” we call him)
The sweatpants guy with the braided beard who rants about the crossing guard.
The platinum-blonde lady who tried to pass off a fake 50.
The guy who hugs everybody. (Although he’s very nice. It just weirds out all the people who don’t know him. Which is everybody.)
The guy who looks in the windows all the time. (Even though he’s “a lawyer from Washington, DC,” so he’s “allowed to do things that other people aren’t.”)
The tall guy who stole my tips.
The lady who has stolen all of our tips.
The little girl who starts a screaming match every time she’s in here.
The people who put their baby on the windowsill. Which is four feet off the ground.
Excerpt from one of today’s conversations:
“Ya can’t tell no difference between reg’lar pasta and wheat pasta. ‘Cept on the way out, you know.”
True Stories of an Urban Barista 