Guy: Can I have change for a 20?
Me: Yeah…
Guy: Aw, you’re so nice. And beautiful! You’re beautiful too!
Me: Please… don’t call me that.
Guy: Why? You don’t feel beautiful in the morning?
Me: No, I just don’t like anybody but my husband to call me that.
Guy: If you have problems with mornings there is this invigorating body scrub. Great for the mornings!
Me: Please… please… just don’t.
Recently, a man has been coming in every day. Sometimes twice a day. An average conversation goes like this:
Him: Can I have a coffee?
Me: Sure. (gets coffee)
Him: You goin’ home to hubby?
Me: I will be soon.
Him: You go home to hubby. But don’t have no baby. Them babies cost 25,000 dollars.
Me: Okay.
Him: You make him good dinners, but don’t have no baby. No 25,000 dollars.
Me: Okay.
Him: Them’s Tom Selleck’s.
Me: Okay.
Him: See you later, (my name)!
Me: Bye!
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!
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?!
True Stories of an Urban Barista 