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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2006 > April > 18
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Coffee and the ‘O’ word
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Hi, welcome. What can we get for you?”
“Small decaf, please.”
“Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha ….”
(The line is getting longer behind me.)
“Just a cup of decaf?”
Silence from all while the coffee technician, hooked up with microphones and things on their belts, stared at me like I had three heads. These guys looked like they were in a Madonna video.
“What kind of coffee sir?”
“What kind do you have?” (Note to self: never ask this again.)
“Well, we have Lattes, Mochas, Mucho-Mochas, Macchiatos, Espressos, Frappuccinos, Cappuccinos, other Chinos, Ciders, various blends with several different and very trendy names as well as fabulously displayed coffee cakes, scones, muffins and other assorted things with cutting-edge names.
He pointed to several chalk boards with multi-colored words that I couldn’t understand.
I’m out of my league in Latte Land.
When I worked the police morning watch (11 p.m.-7 a.m.) I made a stop for the 2 a.m. coffee at the local diners or coffee houses. It went like this:
“Hi, What would you like?”
“Coffee.”
“OK”
Boom! That’s it! I got coffee!
Fancy-coffee places were invented by groups of rocket scientists who had a slow night just after French class. On the scale of coffee prices, it’s a bit on the upscale side. Normally, there are two coffee employees at the counter. The one on the right is the loan officer.
Fancy-coffee places compete with one another for the most words that end in “o” I’m perfectly happy with coffee that I can pronounce but I found that I do like to sit around the table and listen to other people pronounce words that end in “o.” Experienced fancy coffee-place customers know the lingo and have no shame in boastfully announcing their order so that the rest of us know how many syllables they can put together in one order.
In line for the first time, I was between two experienced fancy-coffee place customers. When the line gets long, the loan officer, who stands next to the coffee-technician, calls out to the customers, who in turn give their heavy-syllable orders that end in “o.”
Then they asked me.
“Decaf.” I replied.
There came a great blanket of silence over the fancy-coffee place with the exception of the notable sound of the espresso or cappuccino or some other “o” machine that sounded more like a B-52 taking off than something that you would ingest. I was a novice and what was worse I had not done my homework.
There is no tolerance for novices who do have enough respect for the fancy-coffee place to study and learn the culture. I could feel the cold stares of the experienced customers who were full of heavy-syllable words spelling caffeine relief ending in “o” and I was requiring them to dam up this river of syllables until I could babble, in layman’s garble, a pitiful attempt to order something that may not even end in “o.”
I could feel the hostile text-messaging going on around me.
I didn’t want to be here now. I now wanted to be somewhere else, maybe drinking a cup of coffee in the English language.
Finally I looked at the chalk board and slowly pronounce a few words, making sure that I ended in “o.” Apparently whatever I said they had one of. The coffee technician shook his head and reached for a cup.
I looked back at the experienced coffee customers who shook their heads and nodded in approval.
Relief was short-lived.
“What size would you like that in sir?” said the coffee technician.
“Small.”
“Tall?”
“No, small.”
“Small is tall sir.”
“Tall sounds big. Small sounds like what I want. Is tall the same size as small?”
“All I know is tall is small so small must be tall.”
I’m in a Dr. Seuss cartoon.
I learned a lot in that line. Truth is I felt confident, given this being the first time and all. I should have immediately left while they thought that I was only mildly stupid.
“Scones?” said the technician.
“Nope, just a shaving rash. Thanks for the…uh…that “o” thing.
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