2 posts tagged “coffee”

Most of my customers--say about 90%--are totally unremarkable.

Another 5% are memorable solely because of their utter illiteracy or stupidity.  Examples include this from a...rural...gentleman, attired in cutoff jeans, a wifebeater, and a grungy baseball cap that didn't sufficiently disguise his blond mullet:

"Yes ma'am, ah'd like that there book on duhve huntin'."

"Dove hunting?"

"Yeah, mah boy has ter read it fer school." 

"Err, do you know the author's name?" 

"Naw, ah ain't much inter books.  But maybe the last name had somethin' to do with a war."

"Well, could you tell me a little about it?"

"Ah know it's kinder famous, but ah can't saih for shurr wahy."

"I...see.  And your son has to read it for school.  It's a book about hunting?" (where is this school district, and what the...?)

"Yah, ah dunn toled you that.  Do y'all have it?"

(I really don't get paid enough) "Did the school happen to send you a letter with the title of the book?"

"'Fraid ah'm not real shur, ma'am.  The school sends a lotta mail, but ah figger the wife takes care of it." (I can't imagine why)

(suddenly, his face brightens)  "But mah son goes to (insert name of public school in boonies near cowtown here).  What're they readin'?"

Suddenly, a shaft of light breaks through the fog.  I remember a couple of kids from this school coming in last week.  We aren't the closest store by any stretch, but they happened to be in cowtown that day, and got the book from our store.  What was the title?  Oh, surely not.  Surely not.

"Sir, it wouldn't be To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, would it?"

It was.

Le sigh.

Of the remaining 5%, 2% are briefly memorable because of snottiness, phone-against-the-ear-itis (symptoms include an inability to hear the cashier ask you to step out of line and go to her register, an inability to understand why the bookseller will NOT, if she has other customers, stand next to you and wait for you to finish your phone conversation before assisting you, and an inability to understand complicated directions like "please slide your card here and enter your PIN or press clear), or just outright RUDENESS (b*tching out the bookseller because you had a bad experience at a store in this chain five years before she was legally old enough to be employed by this store, for example, and offering this as an excuse for why we should give you a discount).

Another 1% are the ones who send the booksellers running the MINUTE they walk into the store.  These are usually regular customers who a) want to tell you that Harry Potter is REAL and they need to find the Marauder's Map and where is it shelved?, b) want to corner you to tell you all about their political views (which, no matter what your political bent, will ALWAYS be the exact opposite of yours), c) want to get entirely too hands-on with the female booksellers, d) throw a fit because their frappuccino is "too sweet"--but always order the same frappuccino, and/or e) will ask you to spend thirty minutes looking up obscure or impossible-to-find books with little or no information--"I think it was published in 1910 and had 'fieldmice' in the title, but I'm not sure."

Finally, there are the 2% who either make me laugh, make my day, make my week, or who just make an impact on me that I won't forget.  Or they'll do something so completely unexpected that I do a quadruple-take.

I had one of the latter the other night.

I saw a couple walking through History/Current Events, greeted them, and asked if they needed any help.

This couple was perhaps in their late fifties, and had, I suspect, been married for some time.  She had her arm through his, and they were chatting and laughing like a couple in their twenties.  It was neat to see.

If J. Random Invididual had looked at them, he probably wouldn't have been impressed.  They were both blondish, medium height, maybe a little extra weight.  No outstanding features beyond nice smiles and the fact that they were clearly still very much in love.

After I greeted them, they smiled at me and said that they didn't need any help, and how was I doing?  I replied with some sort of brief response--"fine," "great," "fantastic," etc--and continued on my way back to music to help a music seller with something.  Perfectly normal interaction, happens literally hundreds of times during a shift.  I thought no more about it.

About three minutes later, I saw the couple walk into music.  They came and stood near me while I finished with a customer.  Once the other customer left, I turned to the couple.

The guy walked over, took my hand, smiled (very kind smile) and said, "We just wanted to apologize.  I don't think we were very polite back there; we were a bit preoccupied.  Thanks for asking us how we were doing, and again, we didn't mean to be impolite."

Me: (astonished stare) "Good grief, you were fine.  I didn't think you were at all impolite.  In fact, you even asked me how I was doing." (wondering vaguely "what the heck?...")

Her: "Oh, well, we thought we'd been a bit abrupt."

Me: "I didn't.  Don't worry about it."

Him: (still smiling) "Well, I'm glad you felt that way.  Listen, you have a really nice evening, okay?"

Me" ...Yeah, you too.  Come back and see us again."

(stands in music department, blinking for several seconds)

They walked out of the store, still hand-in-hand.

Yes, two very nice customers apologized for being insufficiently nice by no one's standards but their own (obviously very high) ones.

In short, I'm expecting the Four Horsemen to make an appearance any minute.  Be warned.  You heard it here first.  It's the only possible explanation.

Now, if I could figure out why so many people felt compelled to wear cat ear headbands into the store tonight.  There was no obvious connection between any of them.  Different ages (youngest about 13, oldest about 40), male and female, different races (white, asian, hispanic), different socioeconomic backgrounds (the ears were worn with everything from grungy jeans to a local private school uniform), different religions (one guy wore a cross, one gal was wearing a pentogram pendant) etc.  Very odd.  The Mr. Clean dude with the cat ear headband will, I think, be forever etched in my memory.

(shakes head)

Overall, it was a really nice night.  I'd had entirely too much coffee (didn't sleep much or well last night) and was consequently very (and unusually) perky/upbeat/engaging.  On the sales floor, I think I'm ordinarily pleasant but quiet and rather low-key.  With that much coffee, I chattered nonstop, I laughed (and made most of the customers laugh), I got several people to sign up for the idiotic card program, etc, etc.  The rest of the crew found this hysterical.  (no more espresso after 5, ubi.)

And people wonder why I don't drink, when mere caffeine does this to me!  Can you imagine?

Ooof.  I just crashed.  Must. go. to. bed. now.

Oh, I don't get out enough.  That is obvious.

This morning, I had class from 9-10.  After that, I had to go grocery shopping, but didn't have to be at work 'til 330.  I decided to actually go to the fancy-schmancy health foody store.  What can I say?  There is something of the hippy in this uber-conservative gal, and that hippy likes her organic fat-free vanilla yogurt, her organic raspberry muesli and cereal, and various kinds of fancy teas.  Don't even get me started on the bulk coffee section; if I had a really good coffee machine, I could do SO much damage in there...

Anyhow, after browsing extensively (which is much of the fun at Central Market), I emerged with:

• 2-3 week supply of dry goods (muesli, cereal, oatmeal, dried fruit, almonds),
• some incredible roasted red peppers (great by themselves or on any kind of sandwich, but particularly with tuna or turkey),
• a wedge of brie (i KNOW it isn't diet food, but I can't live without a little really good cheese now and then)
• and some Republic of Tea green tea called "Superfruit" or some such due to the rasperries et all in it.

I then moseyed across the parking lot--depositing the groceries at my car on the way--to The Other Bookstore.  The Other Bookstore is the one of the two nationwide chain bookstores at which I do not work.  It had a very different atmosphere from my store.  My store is a lot bigger, and its sections are a bit more extensive.  I found prices to be similar (if not identical) and various clearance items to be identical in every way.  I liked the security system for electronic media much better than the tag system my store uses; you'd need wirecutters (rather than any sharp blade) to remove the sensore tags wrapped around the music and DVDs.  Seems to me like this would considerably cut down on LP problems.  I also liked their customer service desk area better: much larger, more workstations, etc.  On the other hand, they only had about 4 cash registers at the front of the store-about half our front-of store number, plus we can ring any purchases through in music and the cafe.  I would NOT want to work there if it got as busy as it gets at our store over Christmas.

Having purchased a magazine there, I headed back down the street and got some sushi for lunch.  Incidentally, the place about which I blogged a few days ago is called Sushi Q Japanese Cuisine.  I went there for lunch, and, once again, their service was fabulous and the food even more so.  Very polite and unobtrusive servers, delicious food (I can tell that wasabi is quickly becoming my drug of choice), and not at all busy.  I do hope they stay open; this was lunch hour on a Friday during Lent, they serve fish, fish and more fish, and I was in one of the three occupied booths during the 45 minutes of my stay.  I can't fathom why they're not busy.  I mean, they serve great sushi, have great service--oh, yes, and did I mention that they are in the same shopping center as not one, but TWO shoe stores?

Naturally, I had to check out the shoe stores.  I was very proud of myself for doing a vast amount of window-shopping and no buying.  I got a lot of ideas, though, for what kind of shoes I'd like to get for the summer.  I wish that more people made dress shoes for an ex-dancer's feet.  I danced (Irish) a LOT from the time I was about 5 until I turned 15-16ish.  I had a great time (still love to do it) but the result is that the ball of my foot is very wide compared to the rest of my foot.  This is due to all the time I spent on the balls of my feet.  My feet are also quite flat (lovely Irish peasant genes).  Fortunately, I'd only been doing pointe work for a little while when my teacher moved out of town, so the nails aren't too bad (I've seen girls who either had no nails or whose nails were always black and peeling due to all the pressure from pointe work), but all in all it can be hard to find cute shoes that fit my duck-feet at all comfortably. 

(why did I just go into all this?  oh, never mind.)

I did get a pair of shoes earlier this week that will work beautifully for the musical and for anything in the future that requires black heels.  The heel is very wide, so while it is tall, it is nowhere near as uncomfortable as those gorgeous-but-deadly shoes I posted about a few months ago.  I learned about what kind of heels to buy in vocal rep a few weeks ago.  some people learn about singing in a master class, i learn about singing and shoes.  both are important, right?  Apparently (and this makes perfect sense) the wider the heel, the more comfortable and balance-able (that isn't a word, but it conveys this better than anything else) it is.  That makes sense, because it gives a wider base on which to balance (or teeter, or trip, or...)

Anyhow, this place has oodles and oodles and OODLES of shoes--one looong aisle after another of shoes, shoes, shoes!  I didn't find any work shoes, which I sorely--pun intended--need, but I'll check back again.  I refuse to buy work shoes that are not 150% comfortable, cushy, supportive 

They also hire seasonally for the summer and give their associates a 30% discount.  I think I may have found my second summer job.  :D

This, then, was my day.  Tomorrow I will work on French, rehearse, work on more French, and cook a chicken/vegetable/rice/lentil soup.

I haven't had a morning that relaxing in ages.  I didn't have to rush or hurry or fly or ANYTHING.  I took my own sweet time and browsed, browsed, browsed.  It was glorious.  It was, in fact, so lovely that even when I got to work and discovered that the power had been off for much of the morning and a boil order had been issued for the water (oh, that put the cafe customers in a BEAUTIFUL mood) I couldn't help but smile and keep telling people what a nice day it was.  The cafe servers thought that I should have been strung up due to my irritatingly-cheerful mindset (at one point, I'm reasonably certain they were planning on putting rat bait in my latte), but then they had to deal with more caffeine-fix-deprived customers than I had.  Did I mention that the espresso machine broke?  The poor dears did have rather a rough afternoon.  And then I got to go home early...

As a final note: Starbucks has come out with two new flavors for coffee.  One is an "affogato-style" frappuccino, and the other is a honey syrup that can be added to your coffee drink.  I have not tried the later, but have been told that it is utterly disgusting by nearly every barista I've talked to, as well as several customers.  Needless to say, the baristas didn't say that to or in front of customers; I asked them their private opinion while in the break room or while there were no customers, and they indicated it to be gag-worthy at best.  It sounded rather dreadful to me.  Real honey in coffee might be an unusual and pleasant combination.  Honey-flavored syrup in coffee?  Nah.

As for the affogato-style frappuccino, I tried it.  Ordinarily, I don't drink frappuccinos.  I find them to usually be sickeningly sweet and sticky.  If I do drink such a thing (once a year, or so), it will be coffee flavored and that's it.  However, I was told by two baristas and one bookseller that this drink was to die for.  In need of a sugar fix, I got one.  I took about two swallows and tossed it.  It was vile.  "Affogato-style" means that a shot of espresso is poured over the vanilla frappucino and the whole thing is topped by some kind of syrup.  I have a sweet tooth, but this was too darn much.  Blech.  Yuck. Ptooey.  Etc.  If you like the vanilla frapps (I detest them) you may like this.  If you find them to be sickly-sweet, this is even worse.  (shudders, brushes teeth again)

Off to bed!  I get to sleep in some tomorrow; yay!