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apocalypse, barista, barista life, baristas in the apocalypse, cafe, cafe not so fun, Coffee Shop, don't fuck with the people who handle your food, dust explosions, Epistolary, Family, flamethrowers, From NYC, Hello NSA, I will decaf you, Letters, Libby, Not open means not open, NSA, pre-caffeine is not pretty, read Fight Club, service industry, surviving the apocalypse, the big apple, To DC
Dear Jane,
Concerned is a mild adjective for my feelings regarding the human race. When you work in the service industry such as I do, it quickly becomes hard to see the good side of humanity. I have observed many coworkers go from congenial and kind people to flinty-eyed, snarling, misanthropes. The reasons are numbered and varied – the persnickety regular who demands perfection, but never tips; the idiots who can’t read the board and mix up the iced and hot drinks; the assholes who change their drink after they have paid and we have started making it (“I did say I wanted that iced, right?” or “And could I have that with almond milk? I’m lactose intolerant”), and the puffed up pricks who think they are entitled to coffee every moment of every day.
It is the extreme latter who never cease to annoy, astound, and frustrate me. Today we had one of them come in long before we opened. He walked right up to the counter and spit out his order without so much as a “hello” or “good morning” as I called out twice that we weren’t open. Only one set of lights were on, there were boxes of pastries and trays of doughnuts everywhere, crappy pop music was blaring from the speakers, and I had my hair hanging out. How this picture screamed “open and ready for business” I will never know. He finally got the message after my third “We are not open” and left.
The customer who came in at 6:45 last week made it clear that because the door was unlocked we obviously had to be open. I told him it was unlocked because I was still waiting on deliveries and he demanded to know where our hours were posted. I told him where they were and as he left I tamped down on the urge to yell at him “An unlocked door doesn’t mean we’re open, just like a short skirt and low cut blouse don’t mean she wants your dick, you asshole.”
In case the above hasn’t made it abundantly clear, here is my message: don’t piss off your barista, not only can she refuse to serve you, she might also serve you decaf with a smile on her face.
Has no one read Fight Club? Does no one listen to Eminem? Don’t fuck with the people who handle your food. Our customers are just lucky that I am the farthest thing from a sociopath.
Unfortunately my lack of sociopathy will probably result in me not surviving the apocalypse. We discussed it in depth at work today, who we would want to have on our side if the world as we knew it ended, where we would go, and various contingency plans. Kara, Taylor, and I quickly discovered that coffee shops do not have the best supplies for surviving the apocalypse (be it from nuclear war, zombies, or ebola). We volleyed many ideas back and forth and came up with a fairly workable plan.
Kara wants a fully automatic machine gun so she can giggle as she mows down the masses. With her adorable blond pixie cut, big blue eyes, and bright smile she would be terrifying. Taylor has claimed a magnum as her weapon of choice, and I think I’ll just stick with what I know – my fists, feet, and the hickory sledge hammer handle Dad gave me for college. Since our weapons of choice are probably not going to be available to us, we put critical eyes to our workplace and came up with a few alternatives.
If our chai supplier hasn’t fucked us over that week we might have enough chai powder to create a dust explosion and I know for a fact we have a massive stockpile of fluorescent light bulbs in the back which means a supply of mercury ready to be mined. Clorox is always helpful. Other than that we have water hot enough to melt people’s eyeballs, lots of glass bottles, a mop handle, two bagel knives, and cream cheese spatulas.
Since this is arguably a laughable defense against zombies, militia, and ebola-infected enemies, my main plan is to break into the two salons next door and grab all the hairspray I can manage. Hello miniature flamethrowers. There is a bar on the next street over from which we could get booze for molotov cocktails, but apparently you can’t use beer because it doesn’t have a high enough alcohol content. I haven’t had the time to compile a list of liquors that are appropriate, but I will revisit that soon enough if I am not hauled in by the NSA for Googling things like “dust explosion,” “weaponizing mercury,” “homemade napalm,” and “can you use alcohol in molotov cocktails?”
But yeah, it sounds like you are working with a bunch of winners there, Jane. Definitely time to reconsider your work path. Juice boxes are delicious, but wine is better.
Contemplating world domination while working on the contingency plan.
Love and snuggles,
Libby
Ps – The plan is to get back to CNY, we know that our lake has drinkable water, there are cows we can eat, and plenty of vegetables. You and Gavin drive north and bring all the canned goods.