A Cup of Mindless Chatter
It was the third Tuesday of the month, which meant it was my round and my place of employment, The Sunny Side Cafe, in which we'd be congregating. This happened once a week; a gathering of friends, moaning about their mundane and minimum wage existences, each taking turns hosting in the very institutions responsible. The only reason we even met at our workplaces was for the discounted drinks and day old, unsellable cookies we were often slipped by fellow employees in a passive display of rebellion. Last week was spent at The Brew Club, where Wendy enlightened us with pangs of the newly introduced "Cold Tea", while she drowned one of her noble comrades in all six of our long winded orders.
"Who even orders a cold tea anyway?" She started. "Get a fucking lemonade."
The idea of steeping precisely two inches of hot water only to shake it with cold and pour over ice left us all with a mild headache as Wendy continued to describe, in detail, the exceptionally annoying process.
"Ginger Zinger." She continued. "I almost guarantee you there isn't a single speck of real ginger in that bullshit tea. Ginger Zinger." She repeated with a tone of disdain. "People are cunts-- Oh honey, remember it's sugar free in that double, non fat, right?" She moved her glance to the boy behind the bar. "Thanks Marko!" She finished with a mildly condescending grin.
"Ugh, I hate when customers do that. Remind you it's non fat or whatever." Barb had chimed in, while reaching for her own latte.
"Oh fuck, I know." Agreed Wendy, still grinning at a timid Marko. He returned a halfhearted smile then reset his gaze to the mug at hand. "Um, yes. Can I get a large skinny latte?" Her voice grew several octaves as she mockingly portrayed a customer. "That's nonfat milk you're pouring right? Just checking. Great, thanks. And sugar free? That's sugar free syrup? Sugar free. Right. You're sure? Maybe you should just make it again. Just to be safe." Barb was laughing. Wendy, returning to her natural voice finished sarcastically, "Amazing how we ever can survive such an intellectually challenging job. Cunts."
Cunt was the most favoured word in our group when it came to deploying insults. We all agreed it was the only word truly worthy of emphasizing the sheer obnoxious intolerability that was coffee shop customers.
We now sat, the five of us, around a table meant for three at the most, pulling chairs from various tables and taking up the majority of whatever walking room was available in the already cramped cafe.
"Oh shit! Did I tell you some cunt called ME a fucking cunt last week?!?" That was Nicki. She enjoyed the usage of cunt almost as much as she enjoyed her plain, black coffee. She was the only one of us who actually ordered from the menu and hadn't used the evils of her insider barista knowledge to concoct some ridiculous and rather unnecessarily drawn out caffeine cocktail. She liked coffee. Period. If it were acceptable, she'd sooner just hold her mouth under the filter spout and swallow. Although knowing Nicki, I wouldn't put that past her, especially on shifts when she opened alone.
"So this Fucknut hits the drive thru during Rag Hag hour…"
We all rolled our eyes in unison. Nicki's shop, The Lotus Bean, was unfortunately situated next to a pilates studio in a part of town where shoe shopping was considered a legitimate form of physical activity and working out was more so a means of socializing and showing off your latest pair of breasts than actual exercise. Every weekday morning between eleven and twelve o'clock, the time when pilates ended and all the botox injected trophy wives and their raging mid-cycle, mid-life hormones had time to kill by sipping overpriced beverages and ruining the lives of emotionally fragile coffee baristas, The Lotus Bean became a box of Hell, thus earning the title, Rag Hag hour. Staff members would cry, perfectly made drinks would be sent back to be made again, the very same way, only then to be sipped and declared tolerable. We all dreaded Nicki's rag hag stories and thanked the Heavens we didn't work at The Lotus.
"…We're getting completely dicked; I mean, you can see our drive through line from Space. But the retard decides to get in line anyway. By the time he gets to the window, he's fuming, and now yelling at me for making him miss his bus. Your bus?! You're in a fucking SUV. What fucking bus are you missing? And, I'm sorry, did I force you against your will to enter our drive through? I think not. Anyway, I hand him his DECAF cappuccino while kindly reminding him that he unfortunately came at our busiest time, however we do apologize for his waiting and did our best to be as efficient as possible, blah blah blah, wank wank wank, suck my dick." We had fallen prey to one of Nicki's infamous rants. "And get this!" There was no stopping her now. "The guy not only calls me a cunt, but he throws his fucking drink back in through the window! I had to duck. Like literally. I full on narrowly averted a non-caffeinated caffeine bomb." She took a breath. "It's happened," She gave a resigned sigh. "Rag Hag has actually become a war zone."
"Was he still there when you stood up? What did you do!?" Tom. Of course Tom would be concerned about the customer and the correct way by which to properly diffuse the situation. Tom was never a favourite of customers, or colleagues for that matter. He was the kind of barista who charged the extra twenty cents for a request of one more shot of hazelnut syrup when most would turn a blind eye. Tom was by the book, which to us meant he had policy rammed so far up his own ass that he practically sneezed stock take. We were sure he recited the company's terms and agreements as a way to lull himself to sleep at night.
"Ya, he was there. I think he half expected me to make him another. I told him that throwing the very drink he'd been waiting so long for seemed rather counterintuitive, and that due to the fact that he nearly scalded my entire face off, the chances of him getting another coffee were about as likely as me climbing through that window and sucking his cock. But there's a barista down at The Koffee House who'd probably do both, possibly even at once to save you time."
We all turned to Tom, grinning slyly. Barb tousled his hair in a way a teasing sister would to her little brother. He shook his head and frowned, running his lanky fingers through to correct his now messy locks. Tom was the only one who took his job seriously, and therefore was the butt of most jokes. All jokes, really. It didn't help that his image mirrored his impeccable work ethic; immaculately clad in sweater vests and coordinated cardigans. It was like he was asking to be tossed around, to be verbally trampled and dirtied.
"You're not funny, Nicole." He whined. "That man could report you to head office."
"Yes, Tom." Nicki started, her voice patronizing and soaked with boredom. "Because I actually told a customer I'd suck his dick before I'd make him another coffee. Do they teach sarcasm in any of those courses your Mommy pays for, or did you drop out of that one already too?"
Tom sank into his chair and took a sip of his extra whip white chocolate raspberry mocha, mumbling the word, bitch, into his mug. Tom didn't like to swear in public, but Tom really didn't like Nicki so the latter usually overruled.
"Oh, relax Tommy." Barb chirped. "Nick just spends too much time with the Rag Hags. Maybe their cycles have synced up! Plus, I don't think she's gotten laid since their frozen fruit guy got transferred."
Barb and Tom used to work together at Starbucks before both going independent. Despite her casual need to defend him, the only reason they were actually friends was solely because they were no longer forced to see each other every day. Barb once told me, when we were sharing a day old bagel on her lunch break, that Tom used to offer to remake her drinks for her, even when she made them correctly, which she often admitted she rarely did.
"He was always telling me what I was doing was 'unsanitary'." Her air quotes were lackadaisical but held a shred of contempt.
Barb was the epitome of unsanitary. I once watched her use a tortilla chip to scoop fallen sour cream off a bar floor then proceed to dip it into the communal salsa before shoving it into the mass abyss that is her mouth. Eating customer's leftovers was probably the least of her misdemeanors.
"Like, for fuck's sake Tom. Go masturbate somewhere."
Barb was also a firm believer that anyone with a stick up their ass, or in this case the company's employee manual, was merely sexually frustrated. When dealing with a particularly bitchy customer, alongside their name on the cup, she would write the words, MASTER B, in capital letters, for her own amusement. If the customer questioned the preface, Barb would smile graciously and inform them that they had been randomly selected for an upgrade to their premium, master blend espresso, a new company promotion. I often wondered how many times she, herself, had flicked the bean during work hours. I didn’t dare ask, fearing her answer would far outweigh my imagination.
Barb was the only one of us still working at a chain. She quit Starbucks to save her soul from a life sucking franchise, only to find herself three doors down at Blenz.
"They gave me dental." She would argue. "Plus, they have almond milk. You know I'm lactose intolerant, and soy is chalk full of hormones." It was always a wonder, the things Barb worried about. Eating a half wrapped scotch mint found at the bottom of a recently purchased thrift store purse was considered standard snacking behaviour, but a slight increase in estrogen from half a cup of steamed soy milk was blasphemous.
"I thought you had to work today?" Wendy's question brought me back from my thoughts, and hers apparently as well. She often got lost in our conversations. Her attention span was minimal and she spent more time eavesdropping on others than engaging in our topic at hand. This had been the first she'd spoken since she arrived, greeting us with a silent wave and mentioning her store was installing a new pastry case.
"I did," I responded. "But Blondie offered to switch so we could still meet. Michael's been fucking up our schedule all month. I think his wife left him, or something." Shelley had been dropping hints about joining our weekly tea parties for some time now, and the offer to switch shifts was one of her more subtle moves. It was out of irony that I called her Blondie, for we were the only two platinum blondes that worked at The Sunny Side, and were mistaken for each other by customers more often than not. The amount of times an irate coffee drinker would scorn her incessantly for not knowing her 'usual', while I stood silently reciting the woman's half shot, decaf, extra hot, extra dry, soy cappuccino in my head, pleasantly amused.
"It's a sip of liquid with foam." Shelley said to no one in particular once the customer had left. "The bitch basically paid for clouds. Smelly ass clouds. Steamed soy alone smells like shit; extra hot smells like it's been brewing in AIDS for ten years. Whatever. The woman looked like a bag of prunes and smelled worse than soy AIDS."
This was the first time I considered inviting Shelley to join our group. I didn't necessarily care much for her either way at the moment, but she was bold enough to sprout an AIDS joke without really knowing her audience and that enticed me.
"She came to work in heels again." I said, returning to the conversation.
"Did you make her set up the patio, like last time?" Nicki was smirking at the idea.
"Yup, the girl just doesn't learn"
"I'm right here, Charlie." A disaffected Shelley stood behind me, placing empty mugs on a tray.
"Oh, Shelley! Didn't hear you back there. Must be a flats day. Thanks again for switching shifts, you doll."
"Ya, ya. You should be grateful. I just had to remake this guys drink because I stirred it too many times."
"Ah, yes. Three and three quarter Kurt. He's a charmer that guy. Likes his specifics." I could tell the long day had begun to wear on poor Shelley and the small amount of empathy I had in me decided to cut her a break. "So Shell, next week we're meeting at Tom's cafe. It's a pretty big place so there'd probably be room for one more…"
Shelley's face lit up. I'm not exactly sure why; we certainly weren't the friendliest group of disgruntled playmates, nor was our company anything to brag about.
"Really?" She stepped forward and the click of her heels made me smile.
"Sure. Triple half sweet almond syrup almond milk latte, one small extra whip five pump white chocolate raspberry mocha, an extra-large black coffee no cream no sugar, large extra shot no foam skinny cappuccino, and one Sunny Side special for me, hold the whip. Remember all that and have them to us in five and you're free to join."
Shelley stood with a blank expression, her jaw hovering just above her patent leather shoes. Everyone needed a rite of passage.
"Oh, and don't forget to charge Tom for his extra whip." I threw a wink his way and watched him groan.
Wendy let out a giggle that ended with a subtle snort, looked to me and stated,
"You're such a cunt."