tick-tock, tick-tock!

Sometimes — well, a lot of times, a lot of the time, rather — I get obsessed with weird, useless crap. Instead of pondering what’s useful or helpful or edifying, I become bothered, for instance, with how much time my customers take at the condiment stand, dressing their coffees and lattes and espressos. So much so that I stand and watch them, their backs to me, shaking Splenda packets down like you do, rattling the raw sugar shaker with the too-small holes that I don’t fix, because — well, initially, I thought because I am lazy but now I realize that, unfortunately, it’s because I’m really a sadist and callously fascinated with their struggle, like when you see a bug on its back on the sidewalk flailing its whisper legs about and you just watch it; you don’t help it. See, I set up these little anthropological experiments for myself to witness throughout the day. Which may mean deep down, I’m a scientist, but I dropped Chemistry in high school because I broke three beakers in the first week, so we probably need to stick with sadist, which kinda sucks. For everyone else whose life I touch, I guess.

So.

Today, I kept track of how much time, exactly, random customers took at the condiment stand. I have a stopwatch behind the bar because we use it regularly to calibrate the correct length of espresso shots — lest you think I went out and purchased a watch just for this major experiment. No. NO. Sillies. I need it … you know, for my WORK.

Here’s my random selection today. And I ask you, peeps: How long should it take to dress your damn drink?? Because sometimes you’re there too too long and it’s awkward. For meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Please move along, Slappy.

Okay. These are minutes, you know, not hours. Although, with some people ….

Medium coffee girl — 01:34:07

(I died twice watching her and paddled myself — you know, zzzzzt — back to life. I don’t know why, really. Sheesh, girlie.)

Medium coffee man with the teeniest, tiniest Yorkshire terrier — 00:17:82

(The dog was too wiggly and too small to live, really, in my opinion. He had no heft of life, that li’l scrap. Owner dude, sensing Scrappy’s frailty, had to hurry or Scrappy could very well have died — DIED! — on my condiment stand from the breeze of the fan or something and all that half and half would have been wasted while owner dude, his coffee growing cold, wailed loudly over li’l Scrappy’s death.)

Large coffee guy with Ralph Lauren polo shirt — 00:22:59

(The shirt was lavender. Oh, and you know it’s LOR-en, not Lor-EN, right, peeps? Okay. Good. See? How can I be a sadist when I care about whether you know such things?)

Large decaf dude — 00:18:13

(Good job, Decaf. But please buy a li’l scrap of dog to help you go just that teensy bit faster. I may start selling them in that extra pastry case those online wieners sent me when my first one arrived cracked. Danish ‘n’ Doggies! Nice. Watch out, Starbucks, you losers! Uhm, what am I writing about? I’m asleep, right?)

Large Eye Opener guy who works at major local theatre company as a stagehand and, quite vexingly for me, never wants to talk about theatre or anything for that matter — 01:46:38

(Paddles! CLEAR! ZZZZZZT! Dammit! I will give you a wiggly, needy dog, dude, to speed up your process. Unless you make with the scintillating theatre convo — pronto! You have killed me every morning for over two weeks now, which is generally considered rude. PRRRRO-ceed.)

Medium coffee guy with reindeer Chihuahuawawawa — 00:16:53

(See? Li’l Scrap o’ Dog = Speed, Haste, Booo-bye. This is Lola, the reindeer dog and her owner, Butthead. Lola is a companion dog which means she can do whatever the hell she wants and I can’t say anything because Butthead needs her to “stay sane” or “keep from killing himself” or “others” or whatevs. So Lola skitters around all over the place — unleashed — with a giant jingle bell collar around her tiny little neck. I don’t know which is bigger, actually — and this bothers me a lot, too — those huge jingle bells or her gigantic bulging eyeballs. An experiment for another time, I guess. When that butthead Butthead isn’t looking.)

Medium iced coffee guy with the blinking tic — 01:11:00

(Maybe he had contacts or something. Maybe he had something in his eye. Maybe he was stunned by my early morning beauty. I know I am. But, it’s pretty obvious here that the blinking tic impeded his forward motion out the door. Please avail yourself of my Wiggly Doggie Display Case next time you visit, BT Guy. Oops. Tripped.)

Now didn’t we all learn something here?

Oh, tomorrow — Tuesday — is the day that Carla the Intuitive Clairvoyant’s group meets at Boheme! I sense a gathering tizzy!