I believe that when we finally come to understand the smallest building block, the very stuff of which the universe itself is made, it will turn out to be irony. Yes, irony. Makes sense, doesn't it? More about that later, but moving to the second basic element of which the universe has been constructed, I think it is hypocrisy. Then comes indignation. Sadly, I find that I myself am a proof that these elements are indeed fundamental materials; indeed I usually give them away more than most. Except for this guy I saw at the coffee stand this morning.
I was at a coffee stand this morning and heard a funny exchange. When it was his turn, a middle aged man in front of me in line, and who seemed particularly rushed while we waited our turn to order, stepped up and in a clipped manner said
"Grande drip in a tall cup."
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" said the hurried but pleasant young woman at the counter.
"Grrraaande drip in a tall cup." He said it slowly, dragging out the syllables for emphasis.
"Do you want a Grande drip half full?" she said hesitantly.
Well, at this point the guy had been waiting for more than two minutes in line just to finally get to the front and find himself unable to make the person understand a perfectly simple order (of course, I don't know what he was thinking really, I am just filling in the blanks from his expression and body language. Raising his voice, the guy announced loudly,
"I JUST WANT WHAT I ASKED FOR. A GRANDE DRIP IN A TALL CUP! "
The poor person at the counter looked flustered, and she had been so pleasant, and I think she'd been convinced all along that SHE must be misunderstanding him, so I leaned up and said,
"Unless you are a human compressor or can suspend physical laws you can’t have that. No one can. I think a reasonable compromise might be for you to have a tall drip in a Grande cup. How would that be?"
The guy looked at me, with irritation, then I believe he realized that he'd been demanding sixteen ounces of coffee in a twelve ounce cup instead of the opposite. He got kind of white in the face and then walked out without another word to me or the gal at the counter.
"Thank you, I couldn't figure out what he wanted. I thought I was mixed up and he was getting mad." she said.
"You were very good about it." I said. "Now for me...may I have a grande black tea in a replica space shuttle sippy cup?"
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment