You Have Become The Very Thing You Sought To Destroy!

I’m waiting in line at a coffee shop. The line is only five people long, but it’s moving along very slowly due to the shop being short-staffed. Only one person is working behind the counter while the others are busy making sandwiches.

While I’m waiting, I check out the display. Since this is late in the day, they have run out of a lot of things. I decide on what I want from the options available and play around on my phone while I wait.

Meanwhile, a man in front of me is complaining loudly about having to wait such a long time, grumbling about how the staff is lazy and slow, and wondering why they don’t DO something about the long wait, etc.

Yeah, brilliant. I’m sure the staff would never have thought of working as fast as they could without that intelligent input. At one point, he even interrupts the woman working the cash register to complain to her directly, because stopping her from doing her job of handling the current customer’s payment will make the line move SO much faster.

The grumpy man finally reaches the first position in line.

Grumpy Customer: “I want a coffee and a slice of blueberry cake.”

Cashier: “Sorry, sir, we have run out of blueberry cake.”

The man stops dead in his tracks, looking as if someone has slapped him in the face.

Grumpy Customer: “Oh? OH! Ehm, wow, aha, ehm, what should I have instead then, ehm, let me think…”

It’s at this point that I burst out laughing at this man who had been wasting his waiting time complaining and being rude instead of actually checking the display to see if they had what he wanted, and was now holding up the line himself.

He decided on a cinnamon bun and hurriedly left the line with his head down, avoiding eye contact with everyone.