Sunday and Monday

You suck, daylight savings time. Now I have to mentally add an hour every time I look at the oven clock for the next six months.

Things are really heating up with regards to the whole coffee shop situation. Yesterday morning: “it’s my last today” said lardy.

My eyes lit up like he was definitely a Siberian Husky in a lift. I tried to subdue the joy emblazoned across my face by imagining the Husky had bone cancer, but it was too late, I was beaming.

“That’s great news”, I said, now in for both a penny and a pound, “I mean, moving on to bigger and better things is always good.”

Nailed it.

But what’s this, he’s dialling it back a bit: “well, I gave the boss four weeks notice that it was my Mum’s 50th birthday party today, and he said he needs me here today and I told him I’m going whether he likes it or not and he says if I leave I’m out of a job.”

Well well, chicken licken, that’s no good, but it doesn’t really seem like a sure thing. It’s not fair that you go around getting people’s hopes up that they can once more return to the world of anonymity that they desire.

“Here comes limp dick now” he said as his boss walked in the door. I laughed out loud. Such a great insult. The boss came in and did not say anything to his star barista. I stood there in the steely silence, and then quietly I heard “so Alex, do you live around here”.

It was quiet enough that in a court of law I would feel comfortable swearing on a bible that I didn’t hear it, so I did not respond. It’s like if a bear is sniffing around outside your cabin in the woods. Just wait it out, they’ll go away eventually.

The voice came again, closer behind me and louder. “Alex, do you live around here?” Dammit, that’s too close to ignore. The bear is in the house. I repeat, the bear is in the house.

I turned, faced the limp dick, and we discussed my home/work situation. What he called “luxury”.

2 minutes later, the unfirm boss was in the back and it was just me and lardo, and … please welcome for his first appearance on the big screen, some dude named Johnny.

I hear Chubs McGee say: “Johnny, this is the programmer dude I was telling you about.”

What in the dearest of fucks? Why am I being talked about! I just want to be alone, I just want to be anonymous. It’s right there in my Medium name. Why am I the centre of fucking attention in this god damn coffee shop?!

Johnny looked me up and down. I could tell he was counting my tattoos and by the end of the scan, having counted to exactly zero, was clearly displeased with what he saw.

“Sup”, he said, like a Hispanic stereotype with his top button done up in a movie set in the naughty parts of California. But he was a quite-white Australian in a wife-beater, when it was only 15 degrees out.

I did a curtsy and said, in a British lady’s voice, “good day to you sir”. (OK not really.)

I honestly don’t remember how this exchange ended.

That was yesterday. This morning I walk in and … new barista!

Holy crap. Shit went doooown.

I immediately asked wobble cock for the surveillance footage of the argument that resulted in this organisational restructuring. He complied and we sat with a pastry each, watching and laughing at the fatty getting all teary yelling about how important his Mum is to him. I’m so glad there was sound — very rare in surveillance footage these days.

Back to things that are true, I was introduced to the new barista, she was told that I will be in for the same thing every single day, a large cap, one sugar. She didn’t look up (+1 point), but hadn’t even shown me the courtesy of being good looking (-1 point), so zero points for new barista.

There was some sort of organised bike ride today. Nothing huge, either exactly 12 or 17 bikes, lazily going past as I walked across the bridge at lunch time. Overheard conversation one: “can I ask you a personal questionare you a Christian?” That’s not a typo, there was literally no space between the request to ask a question and the asking of the question. The questionee laughed, I didn’t hear the answer. I think I saw her begin to pedal faster.

The second overheard snippet came from a woman looking up at the sky and then at the water and then at the 5 storey apartment block behind her. “I feel like I’m New York or England … it’s a different world.”

Where in the hell has she come from that this is a different world? It’s literally exactly the same as every other suburb, except it has a little bit of water. My best guess is she lived under ground until earlier this morning.

Also, New York or England? That covers quite a lot of ground, both geographically and in range of scenery. If she’d said just “England”, I’d assume English countryside and allow it. If she’d said “New York or London” I would have let that slide too. But New York or England? No.

End of day.