A Regular Hero

(I’m working the counter at a fairly popular café. It’s the afternoon and it’s surprisingly busy for our store. Besides me, there are two other people in the store: a regular customer and her boyfriend of three months. The regular is a short, very sweet girl, an extreme pacifist, and generally a very pleasant person to talk to. She’s been coming to the store for as long as I’ve been hired, and we’re close enough that we talk all the time through text. She’s one of my closest friends. Her boyfriend is a giant dude with piercings in his right ear and a long Mohawk that he’s dyed bright neon green. He looks like a classic “punk” and honestly looks like he could throw a coffee machine across a room if he wanted to. The regular, on the other hand, is pretty much a classic “schoolgirl” type person. She brought him in to meet me, and for a date, so they both seem really nice. They chose a small table with metal chairs at the end of the bar, and the girl is looking in my direction as this goes down. A middle-aged man walks into the empty café and stands by the bar in front of me.)

Me: “Hello, sir, welcome to [Café]. What can I get for you today?”

Man: “Oh, just my regular—“ *shifts his hand out of his hoodie pocket to show me a rather large knife* “—and don’t talk to those two while you’re getting it; I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

Me: *glances at the regular and the boyfriend* “Of… of course, sir.” *opens the register with a rather loud clack — they tend to slam open if we don’t catch them*

(The regular looks up from her drink, looking confused at the loud noise. The boyfriend doesn’t look up from his phone.)

Me: “And will that be for h-here or to go, s-sir?”

(I notice the regular stand up really slowly from her chair, and the boyfriend looks away from his phone to look at her.)

Man: “To go, obviously. I just told you I was in a hurry. Get it out here already.”

Me: “Right, sorry…”

(I notice the regular wrapping her hands around the back of her chair, and the boyfriend is leaning forward slightly, like he plans on getting up. I’ve collected all the larger bills in my hand and I’m starting to reach over the counter to hand it to the man.)

Me: “Here’s your change, s—“

Regular: “HAH!”

(Both I and the man looked towards the regular and her boyfriend in surprise, just in time for the regular’s metal chair to crash into to man, throwing him to the floor and making him drop his knife. The regular had thrown the heavy metal chair right over her boyfriend’s head and into the man who had been attempting to rob us. This and the chair stunned the man long enough for her boyfriend to run over and keep the man pressed to the floor until the police arrived. This regular is pretty well known among the employees now, and I have yet to see anything else that could possibly top how stunned I was to this day.)