Strange goings on

This is a very strange restaurant in the smallest town in Connecticut. I know about it because this is where my friend Lori and I waited for a ride and a tow truck when my car misbehaved on the way home from visiting my daughter in New Hampshire. There was an old car full of young hippies/woodsmen, too. With dogs. And a guitar.

The whole thing was very surreal.

The $250 tow was pretty solid, however.

But we made it home, back to normal life, and all is well. Except at the grocery store.

First, I only ever go to this particular store because they carry the yogurt that I prefer and generally have better produce than the closest one does. Today they were out of the yogurt. The lettuce was six days past the sell-by date. They were out of the fresh green beans that were on special. They were out of salted butter. They no longer carry good parmigiano. So I was already feeling like I would have been better off at the store closer to home.

In the check-out line I was disappointed because the rather surly cashier didn't ask if I had found everything, like they usually do. I was ready to give her the list. After I paid and as I prepared to take my cart and leave, I felt something slam into my back and knock me into my cart.

It was a motorized shopping cart. One of the people of Walmart--we saw a few today, or maybe it was pajama day at the grocery--appeared to have escaped and was at Kroger, allowing a two year old boy to help her pilot the cart.

Yes. I was hit by a motorized shopping cart. I have a bruised back and a sore neck, knee, and ankle, too. I feel like I did when I was rear-ended at low speed. I'm probably going to have to make some visits to the chiropractor.

One of my friends said that the weirdest things happen to me. Yes. Yes they do.

One bad barista can really ruin your day

The boys and I ran an errand to Sweetwater Sound for the church this afternoon. We were thinking of stopping at Zesto, but the desire for soft-serve was trumped by the need for more caffeine.

We stopped at the Starbucks out at the Village of Coventry, in our old part of town, for the first time in months. We went to the register, ordered, and happily paid the price for two iced double tall one-pump caramel macchiatos and a grande mocha coconut frappucino and stepped to the end to wait for our drinks.

I noticed that the young barista who was making drinks was really surly as she slid a venti shaken no-sweetener passion tea across the counter. And, as she plunked a venti shaken five-pump raspberry passion tea down, I thought that maybe she just didn't like passion teas. But she made our first drink--which I told Jonathan to take--slamming down a pitcher that she bumped as she moved toward the counter.

I watched her make my drink, seeing--from frequent experience--that she hadn't allowed for the double shot in my drink. Before she put the lid on I asked, "Could you please give me a dome lid so that that doesn't leak out?" She looked at me with a look that said, "You are stupid and annoying," and said, "It won't leak," as she put the lid on, causing it to leak out the hole in the top and down the side. I just looked at her, and she said, "It's only leaking a little bit," with another sneer. I told her that it was too messy for me in a white cotton shirt and she threw a fit, throwing my lid into the sink putting new caramel on--because it all stuck to the discarded lid--and handing the sticky cup back to me with a scowl.

Then we waited. And waited. And waited. We waited 12 minutes for Andrew's frappucino while almost everyone who came in after us was served. I finished most of my drink. Several times she looked at us and ignored us. Finally the guy who came in five minutes behind us realized she wasn't paying attention to the waiting frappucino orders and asked her about it. She told him they were working as fast as they could. (They weren't very busy.) Then she made his frappucino.

Finally, she made Andrew's. As she handed it across I couldn't help letting the snarkiness out. I'm sorry. I said, "Only 12 minutes for a frappucino and service with a smile." She started yelling at us. As we left, her coworkers were still trying to get her under control.

I have nearly endless patience with bad service. I've done too much time in food service and retail to be impatient. I'm fine with slowness, ineptitude, being in the weeds, less than on-the-ball people, etc. What I can't stand is bad attitude. I was perfectly nice when I asked for a dome lid. I smiled. It wasn't an unreasonable request. Half the time, if the barista can see that they've filled the cup too full, they'll just do it. If they don't notice and I do they are more than happy to give me a dome lid. More than once I've had them offer to remake my drink when it leaked out. I always say no and wipe it off.

But standing there with my sons, either of whom would love her job, and knowing how many great teens we know who can't find one, her nasty attitude really got to me. And the boys. Afterward the subject just wasn't going away. They couldn't figure out how someone who had a job that they can't even get an interview for could have such a lack of concern about customer service. It really bothered them.

Jonathan mentioned that part of what you pay for when you go to Starbucks is the experience. The atmosphere. The friendly baristas.

So, no. Our day wasn't really ruined, but it did cast a shadow. Since I always have a goal when I leave the house of making someone that I don't know smile, the whole thing left me feeling rather bummed. I knew that I shouldn't have let her get to me, but there was something about the petulant, snotty attitude that really pushed my buttons.

So we'll stick to our usual Starbucks from now on.

Erasing posts

 I've blogged twice tonight.

And promptly erased each entry.

It wasn't the quality. The writing was good.

It was the subject matter and tone. They were cranky. And I refuse to be a cranky person.

And now I'm tired, and seemingly incapable of a complex sentence.

I could sit in this chair and waste the rest of the night on Facebook or Pinterest, but I think I'll go organize scrapbooking stuff.

Stumped already

I am starting my month stumped about what to write. If I had written earlier in the day, it probably would have gone smoothly, but I was busy with work and errands, so I put it off.

When I sat down to blog I had a couple of ideas rolling around in my head, but I decided to check Facebook first, just to see what my friends are up to. Well, that was a bad idea, because--as is too often the case lately--someone is behaving badly. I want desperately to ignore it. (Actually, I want desperately to tell someone off.  But it wouldn't be nice and they wouldn't accept what I was saying anyway.) So I want to ignore it.

But I can't. Because it's bothering me. And I can't write when I'm bothered unless I'm addressing the source of the irritation.


So tonight's post is pretty much of a waste. Maybe I'll come up with something else later.