Did You Say You Wanted A Beer?

The other day I placed an order at Starbucks. After I finished, the clerk grabbed a empty cup from the tall stack and paused for a beat. She then looked up at me and asked, “Did you say you wanted a beer?”

She didn’t whisper when she asked me to clarify, in fact she was rather loud.

I was taken aback. Not only had I not asked for anything remotely close to a beer, I hadn’t even utter a word since placing my order.

I immediately informed the boisterous clerk that I had not ordered a beer.

She burst into laughter attracting the attention of everyone in the store. A nearby clerk, who overheard her loud exclamation of “you wanted a beer,” made some obvious remark as he was re-stocking the lids.

I said nary a word as I thrust my gift cars (both of which added up to $2.38) into her chubby hands. She was going on and on, questioning whether or not Starbucks had started to sell beer.

I’m old and I didn’t appreciate her causing a scene. I can understand if I had said, “may I have a queer” or “can I get a pap smear, “or dear, ear, fear, lear” but I didn’t say anything remotely close to “give me a beer.”

In fact I didn’t say anything!

Her immaturity and youthfulness caused her to blurt out a rather embarrassing remark. Someone with more wisdom and experience would have treated my request (which I never made) with more sensitivity.

Worst of all, during this particular visit and on this particular day, I look exactly like someone stupid enough to order a beer at Starbucks and someone in desperate need of one.

Should

I don’t want a rule written or a law enacted, I just want people to stop doing the following: mass-banking on a Friday and ordering more than 2 drinks at Starbucks. These are things people shouldn’t do—out of common courtesy—not be made to do, not forced to do or even coerced to do. On Fridays, you SHOULD only go to the bank for simple deposits or withdrawals. If you need to do some serious banking go on Monday—that’s what Monday’s are for. You’re not Warren Buffett, you can wait two days. Please stop going to the bank and ask for a year’s worth of transactions, when I’m in line behind you wanting to deposit my yardwork check and get some cash to go to Gamecrazy. Moving on…when you go to Starbucks you SHOULD only order one drink for yourself, and at the very most, one drink for someone else. NO MORE! If the lazy slobs in your office want an espresso, they should get off their ass and get it themselves. I have no problem waiting in line behind 10 people, each ordering a drink—that is factored in when I mentally estimate my wait time. But standing in line behind two people and one of them is order 10 drinks screws up my mental estimate. It confuses me! How long will I be waiting? Also, it SHOULD be legally permissible to maim someone who orders 10 drinks and all 10 are blender drinks.

Stay Home

Why do people go to coffee houses and reads books or use their computers or write in journals? You can tell by looking at them they have homes. Why don’t they stay home and that stuff there? Who wakes up and says “I’m going to read today and I want everyone who buys coffee in my neighborhood to see me!” I mean you’re not fooling anyone. Whether you read Kafka at home or at Starbucks, I still don’t believe you understand him. I don’t care how new your laptop is, I don’t have one and I hate you because you do. Writing in a notebook? Really? Longhand? Please, don’t think you can publish that. The spiral part of your notebook will never fit into a scanner. So do me a favor; do all your reading, all your computer using and all your journal writing at home—where it’s suppose to be done.

(It’s okay if you spend your lunch hour or your break reading, using your computer or writing at a coffee house. But if you could wear a sign explain as much that would be great. It will prevent me from getting upset.)