I was in Starbucks the other day (middle class evidence #1) and I was waiting for my coffee alonside a young woman who was clearly irked. She told me she’d been waiting more than five minutes for a latte and several other customers who had arrived earlier had already received their caffeine fix for the day.
I was unsure if what she told me was true, but several minutes later she was still there, waiting – and many more customers who had ordered after ME had been given their coffees. She gave me a knowing look and said “I mean, how long does it take to make a coffee?”, and in that moment I was with her. We were brothers. Or sisters. Whatever, we were on the same side. I’d found a coffee whinger who I respected and understood. I thought about saying something hilarious back at her to demonstrate our coffee companionship. Something which included the word ‘barista’ as it amuses me, but I couldn’t think of anything so I made that ‘tsk’ sound with my mouth and rolled my eyes. We were compadres. As one. And then she ruined it all.
“This is why I normally go McDonalds for my coffee”, she said. And my heart sank. She was NOT me. I was NOT her. We were NOT the same. She didn’t even say “that’s why I go TO McDonalds” – she missed the bloody ‘TO’! I GO MCDONALDS!!!! And after that I didn’t care about her coffee. She had gone down in my estimations.
And soon after this, the middle class barista gave me my middle class drink and I left McDonalds girl to fend for herself to go to my middle class job in the middle class world of media. She’s probably still there, like a little girl lost, smelling of Big Mac juice and longing for caffeine.
I’m not proud of myself.
HACKED OFF DAILY 