Shoe by Gary Brookins and Susie MacNelly for April 25, 2024

When It Stops Being A Coffee And Becomes An Abomination

From my many years of being a barista, I still remember my most obnoxious customer and the only drink he ever ordered.

Customer: “Venti, 152-degree, half-soy, half-lactaid Caramel Macchiato; 1½ pumps syrup, light foam, 1½ shots of espresso, with ½ a packet of ‘Sweet & Lo’ inside.”

He would bring out a thermometer to measure the drink’s temperature as soon as it was served and watch as the “Sweet & Lo” was poured to make sure it wasn’t the whole packet.

Customer: Taking a sip “This isn’t right. Remake it.”

Coworker: “Can I ask what you don’t like about it so I can try to adjust—”

Customer: “What I don’t like is that you didn’t follow my instructions exactly. Remake it.”

My poor coworkers would, of course, just follow the same instructions again and this jerk would make them remake it twice before he was happy. Every single time.

After a while, we realized a pattern where he would only do this song and dance when the female baristas served him. He always seemed to not need it remade when I or another male barista made and served the drink.

We all agreed that only the men would make his abomination of a drink from now on. We could actually see his disappointment when one of the guys brought out his drink and there was NOTHING wrong with it. He had to go find his weird misogynistic power play somewhere else.