Be On The Lookout For Some Overly-Caffeinated Flies

(I have come home from my big-city living to the small town I grew up in as my parents are both ailing and need a bit of help. I head to a local coffee chain to get a coffee while I wait for my mother in one of her doctor’s appointments, and I get a china mug as I know I’ll be there for a bit. I accept the coffee from one server and turn to pick up my ordered bagel from the soup/sandwich section a few steps away when I look down to see two flies in my coffee — fully submerged with their eyes and wings visible. I turn back to the coffee server and put my coffee cup back down where she’d put it for me.)

Me: “I have a problem!”

Server: “What?”

(She doesn’t look down at the coffee; she just stares at me.)

Me: “There are flies… in my coffee.”

Server: “Well, they fell in there as you walked away.”

Me: “What?”

Server: “I took the mug out of the cleaner. They weren’t in there when I filled it. They fell in as you walked away.”

(My bagel is prepared and the woman who made it stares between us as if it were a tennis match.)

Me: “Okay. Can I get another coffee, please?”

Server: “But they fell in while you were holding the coffee.”

(I know as a certainty that they didn’t but just say:)

Me: “Can I just get another coffee, please?”

(The server reaches for another mug and holds it up for me to see it is clean.)

Server: “See? No flies.”

Me: “Great. Can I get another coffee, please?”

(The server filled the new coffee mug and put it down beside the fly-filled one. I took it with a “thank you” — I am Canadian after all — and turned to accept my bagel from the woman who was wide-eyed and silent.)