I’m sitting inside a large chain coffee shop one summer afternoon, waiting out a brief rain spell. For the most part, it’s pretty calm in there and I veg out my phone for a bit. The rain stops while I’m inside.
Suddenly, a lady bursts in with great energy and heads to the counter. What she says is directed at the baristas but is loud enough for half the shop to hear.
Lady: “You have to go outside and see the double rainbow!”
She says with such gusto and confidence, that I at first figured she knew the baristas or was at least a regular customer… the more the conversation goes on though, the more I doubt this. The following is paraphrased, but the gist of the conversation goes like this:
Barista: *Feigning interest.* “Oh, that’s cool.”
As any normal person would expect, neither barista (there are two, though only one does most of the talking here) actually leaves their station to go outside. The woman watches them, growing concerned.
Lady: “You have to go outside and see the double rainbow!”
Brief pause. The baristas don’t answer right away this time, because they’re dealing with actual customers.
Lady: “You have to go outside and see the double rainbow!”
Barista: “Miss, we’re working. We can’t actually leave right now.”
Lady: “Well, you could take turns. One of you could go now and then the other could go in a few minutes.”
Barista: “Still, we can’t leave now.”
Lady: *Seriously growing more offended now.* “But it’s a double rainbow!”
Barista: “I’ve seen double rainbows before.”
Lady: “But this one’s so bright!”
Barista: “I’ve seen double rainbows many times before.”
The old woman stands there dumbfounded for a moment, before turning and retreating out the door, muttering “seen them many times before…”, as if not believing the barista’s claim.
No one else said anything to the baristas about the double rainbow. Later in the day, I did see that a friend had posted pics of it online… and yeah, it was a pretty nice double rainbow.
