“Last I counted we were up to twelve.”
“Well then it’s a good thing I can’t count that high.” He looked at his reflection on his phone and sighed. He looked a mess, but atleast he was one.
“You look fine.” She said.
“It’ll have to do.” He sighed.
“You can do better.” Serena responded. “Why don’t you just get an umbrella?”
“I had one.” Jacob groaned. “The damn thing broke before blowing away and impaling a child’s teddy bear.”
“Hey, we don’t know what that teddy did to that umbrella. Could’ve been evil. Maybe it was doing the world a favour.” She smirked.
“More like it was so desperate to escape me it took out an innocent child’s imagination in a murder suicide. What does it say when your tool would rather kill itself than keep you dry?”
“It means thank god I don’t have access to anything sharp.” She responded. “Hey, you should really get out there because if you don’t want Garret to get suspicious I suggest you serve some customers. I’m going to ruin some fresh air.”
“Fine. How do I look?” Jacob asked, presenting himself to her judgement.
“Human?” She shrugged. “Don’t lie to me.”
“You’re a drowned rat.” “Good enough.”
He made his way out to the floor. The coffee shop was much like every other coffee shop you would encounter.
The theme was faded green panels and wood everything else. Large murals and paintings hung on the wall by various artists who all signed their work with a random letter. The smell of coffee hung so thick in the air it could choke out anyone who ordered decaf. And in many ways, it was comfortable.
Jacob had been here for about two years now. This job had originally been a placeholder until he found something better,but quickly became a comfortable place where he didn’t have to stress about everything. Despite his qualms with the place the coffee was good, and he could just be himself. As stressful as much of his life was, this space was something he knew. This job was something he was good at.
Currently, the customer line wasn’t terrible, but the frowns upon the patrons made him realize that they’d likely been waiting for a while and quickly got into work.
The coffee tango begins.
Serving coffee was always a dance. A rendez-vous with people who hated you but needed your product. A mix of polite small talk and raw, primal passion.
The dance went like this:
Step one- Approach the counter. Hold up your hand so that they know that you are prepared to begin. Touch the screen with precision and let the beeps commence.
Step two- Ask the customer what they want. You must always initiate. These are scared and timid creatures who know what they want, but suck at communicating it.
They roll their eyes and say coffee. They are aghast! A retreat.
You ask what kind?
They respond with coffee.
You ask what coffee?
They say coffee again. Sometimes they might incorporate a flourish of disgust that you, a paltry barista, would not be able to read their clearly superior minds.
You pour them coffee.
They explode because it’s not the coffee they wanted.
So the dance continues…
It goes on and on and so on and so forth until the line is finished.
