The Things They Noticed

The Glum Review

Working in a coffee shop is not unlike being in a war zone. That is, in the morning. Customers keep coming in and coming in. They never stop walking through the door. New faces all the time. They keep ordering drinks and it never stops. Your job is to fend them off one by one. Get their drinks cranked out. Sometimes the drinks pile up on the counter, you get backed up and you just can’t hold them off by yourself any longer. “Back up,” you yell. “I need more skim milk!” You look in the back but every other barista is occupied. One is brewing drip coffee so you don’t run out. You never want to run out of drip coffee. It’s like running out of ammo, you’re dead in the water. Another barista is manning the register, trying to get orders wrung through as fast as possible. There are the two baristas behind the scenes. One of them is washing dishes, trying to keep up with the damn customers who are eating and drinking in house. You better believe the dishes pile up high and many. The sanitizer fluid is ice cold and your hands look like wrinkled raisins when you’re done. The other behind the scenes barista is playing catch up back stocking. Making sure the condiment stand is stocked, the straws, the sugar, the creamer, the cups, the lids, the premixes and syrups, the toilet paper in the bathroom, the pastries, the espresso, etc.

At about nine o’clock, the front line is pushed back real hard. There is a swarm of customers fifteen people long for an hour. There is a constant back and forth between the customers and you where the line moves just a tad either way. That is if everything goes smoothly.

Because there are definitely incidents that occur. They may happen procedurally. The general may arrive and inform the company about the special assignment to which they have been assigned. Usually this involves giant cambros, which are filled with gallons of scolding coffee and the assortment of hundreds of condiments that go with each of the cambros. Try cranking out that order in the midst of a battle, er, nine-thirty rush of customers.

There are the accidental incidents for which no one is prepared. A barista calls in sick and suddenly your front lines have thinned to two. Then you’re trying to shoot down the planes using the big artillery and snipe the enemy off one by one at the same time, and a soldier only has two hands and one head.

But those are incidents you just deal with. Sometimes, in the midst of a ten o’clock battle, there are fresh baristas working who don’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’. They’re like frightened deer, skittish and frozen on the floor. “Get a large coffee, no room, dark roast,” you say to them. Suddenly, they turn into a turtle, slowly grab a cup, slowly slip on a sleeve, think every move out, stare at each coffee urn to be sure of the roast before they finally pour coffee into the cup. And as they turn around without a lid on the cup, the horror, the atrocity occurs. Their foot hits the edge of the rubber mat covering the floor and scalding coffee splashes over their hand and onto their pants and the counter. “Medic!” you yell. “We’ve got a man down!” The customers take a step back from the counter. You can tell everyone in the coffee shop wants to stop, but people keep filtering in through the door. You realize that if you don’t keep going things will get worse before they get better. “Brush yourself off soldier and get back out there!” you say. You can tell the new guy is shaken up, and it reminds you of the first time you gained your wings. You look down at the burn scar on your left hand and you look up at the line of twelve people counting on you and you say, “Next person please”.

There are the things you notice. The small pieces of humanity in the midst of a robotic war machine. They come in many forms and variations. They may be as passe as a customer taking that extra second while they’re ordering to ask you, “How are you doing today?”. You can definitely tell when a customer is robotically ordering (the glossed eyeballs give it away) or whether they are actually paying attention to what you’re saying. Some get too caught up in the fluster and action of the line to find that humanity. Some need to feel like they’re already dead to keep going in the battle, to press the fear way down inside and clutch on to the hope that someday things will be different, someday there will be a homecoming.

There are the things you notice. A gentlemen goes for his wallet and pulls it out with his thumb and index finger because the rest of the fingers on his hand are missing, just stubs. A middle aged guy in a black suit pulls out his change and fishes around for a quarter amongst the nickels, dimes and black and orange guitar picks. A lady opens her wallet and displays an old photo of Ganesh, the remover of objects, where her driver’s license should be. There are a rainbow of colors of rubber bracelets that people wear under the black and gray clothing that cover their wrists. There is the public display of love known as a diamond ring or silver/gold band around the ring finger on the left hand. There are all sorts of varieties of hats and neck accessories make you stand out against the dull dress of the corporate world. There are many varieties of purses, wallets, money clips and coin purses wish usher in many different eras of style over many different years. A sixty five year old woman turns around and you catch just the tip of the iceberg of a tattoo peeking out from the collar on the nape of her neck.

The things you notice give you a glimpse into the secret world people unconsciously cover. The things like certain phrases or sayings that people use to make you notice they’re not from around these parts. The things you notice are the flesh and bone amongst the shrapnel flying through the air, the ground you sometimes don’t feel you’re standing on, and the solace a soldier finds in the inhumanity of war.