No, I'm the Arsehole!

            You’ve hit a patch of ice and lost control of your car. In that split second before you start careening wildly into oncoming traffic at speeds hazardous to everyone’s health, time appears to slow down. During that super slow time that video games have dubbed "bullet time," you do some combination of the following: process all of your possible courses of action and their projected consequences (“Do I: Turn my wheels into the spin; hit the Eject button; or just close my eyes real tight?”), reflect on everything it is you still wish to do in your life (“Now I’ll never be a parent!”), and, if you’re God-fearing, pray (“Dear God, pardon me my innumerable sins, like that time I pantsed my friend Matt, or that time when I masturbated on Christmas eve with my younger brother sleeping in the same room in which I was beating the proverbial meat, or the time... ad infinitum”).

The other morning, I was putting away the coffee order at work. Emerging from the back room, I saw “Kelsey” standing at the counter, waiting to receive her small Americano. I saw her. She saw me. Our eyes made undeniable contact. The previous evening I had texted her and said, “Let’s talk tomorrow ; P”, w.r.t. a future date that we were in the throws of planning. And lo! Standing there in between Kelsey and I was my ex-girlfriend, making Kelsey’s drink. I had hit a patch of ice. I was on the verge of careening wildly into oncoming traffic at speeds hazardous to everyone’s health. Time slowed. I prayed (“Dear Hegel, free me from this bad infinity...”), reflected on everything I still wished to do in my life (“Now I’ll never a Transformer!”), and processed all of my possible courses of action and their projected consequences (Do I: Turn around and head into the back room, act like I didn’t see Kelsey, and just give her a call later; give Kelsey the “I’ll call you later” hand gesture and hope that my ex- just doesn’t notice or say anything; or just turn my wheels into the spin and walk right up to her and be like, “Hey, are you free this coming Tuesday eve?”). In my moment of slowed time, I determined that my first two possible courses of action had the least unpleasant initial consequences (my ex- wouldn’t necessarily be the wiser and I could probably patch things up with Kelsey later), but the most unpleasant long-term consequences (I would be setting a precedent of being unable to be open/honest and Myself at work when my ex- is present, and she’s present a lot). And so, I decided to go with the spin and walk right up to Kelsey and say, “Hey, are you free this coming Tuesday eve?” Ka-blam!

 

So what happened? Well, Kelsey and I hammered out a tentative date for the following Thursday and my ex- girlfriend had a panic attack, vomited, and and went home from work early. I knew damn well that I should have known better than to schedule a date with another girl in front of my ex-, but I did it anyways...Yeah, I’m an arsehole. And yeah, my ex- wouldn’t talk to me for over a day. But, you know what, with a little help from the Puerto Rican Sage,

a.k.a. Gretchen Schauffler, I had a talk with my ex- and established (1st) that we both cared about the same things (being true to our selves at work, each other’s feelings, and being able to pursue our future relationships with each other’s support), and (2nd) some realistic/fair expectations for the workplace (which basically boiled down to setting a precedent for forgiveness). The day after my ex- and I had the above conversation, Kelsey came back into my workplace while my ex- was there and not only did my ex- not need to go home early and I get to talk freely/openly with Kelsey about whatever it was that was coming out of my mouth while my foot was firmly lodged in it, but my ex- and I got to joke about the awkwardness of the situation afterwards. I think that’s pretty a pretty d*mn good recovery after hitting a nasty patch of ice...

Me, Black Coffee, and Anton Chiguhr

           Maybe I was just in a bad mood. Maybe I had just spent the previous four hours working in close proximity with my recent ex- while she herself was pissy about I-Know-not-What (“You doin alright?” “I’m fine.”). Maybe we had been understaffed at work, all damn day. Maybe I had just watched No Country for Old Men like two days prior and, like everything written by Cormac McCarthy and most everything directed by the Coens (sorry Intolerable Cruelty and Lady Killers and Burn After Reading, but you suck), it was having an effect on me. Maybe it’s all the f*cking Hegel I’ve been reading of late... But then, maybe it was the stubborn, self-assured stupidity of the man who, hiding behind his mustache and his glasses, insisted that a color effectively connotes something spatial in character! Maybe it is all the f*cking Hegel...

             I’m at my register. A man walks up. He’s older (60s), mustached, gray haired, wearing glasses, etc.
            “Hello, sir. What can I getcha?”

“I’ll take a small, black coffee.”

            “Room?”
            “Black.”
            “Do you wan’t any room?”
            “I said black, didn’t I?”
           “You did, but it’s black regardless of whether I do or do not leave room in your cup...” I mutter that last little bit through grinding teeth and turn to begin the process of assembling a small coffee w/out room for cream. I hear Anton Chiguhr gently tell the sweet, bumpkin of a gas station attendant, “Now is not a time. You don’t know what you’re talking about, do you?” 

          I feel like telling the man with the mustache and glasses, “Black is a color, not a spatial signifier! GADAMIT!” before going all sweet/gentle and asking, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, do you?” Instead of saying what I feel, I say nothing and just get the man his coffee. While I’m turned around, the stubborn, self-assured, stupidity of the man solidifies itself as he turns to a lady patiently waiting at his right and says, “Come on, like he doesn’t know what I mean.”

Alright, motherf*cker, sir, your mob-tactics went too far: let’s dance!

I’ll start by giving you your very best defense: saying you want your coffee “black” actually does tend to mean, within the cozy confines of coffee-shop discourse, that you don’t want any cream in your coffee. I know that. You, sir, know that. The lady to your right knows that. Maybe somebody who’s never been to a coffee shop in the U.S. doesn’t know that, but f*ck ‘em! We’re in Amuurikuh! There. That, sir, is your very best defense. But it’s got one big problem...

I didn’t ask you whether or not you wanted cream in your coffee, did I? No, I didn’t (see above transcription). I asked you whether or not you wanted room in your small cup, so that I could know how much “black” coffee to put in said small cup (“half full,” “room for spillage,” “about an inch of room,” “no room,” etc.). My question w.r.t. whether or not you want room in your small coffee was unequivocally clear because your request for “black” coffee was not: asking for a small “black” coffee tells me/anyone within earshot almost nothing about how much “black” coffee I should put in your small cup (I say almost nothing because I do think it’s safe to assume that if you ask for a small “black” coffee you want at least a smidgen of “black” coffee in your cup). There, sir. That’s my defense. Further, I couldn’t give two sh*ts what you/anyone else does with the room I may/may not give you in your cups.

“But!” you say, just like you said to the lady at your right, “but you know what I mean!” Wrong, friendo! I can guess. But, just as often as I can guess and guess right, I can also guess wrong, and in the customer service industry guessing wrong often transforms people who are normally only minor a**holes into giant, gaping ones (and my doctor recently told that I needed to start avoiding those). So, sir, in response to your, “He knows what I mean,” I say: But you don’t mean what you say! And you just don’t know what you’re talking about, do you...

The Thought of the Day comes from... UNCLE GEORG!!! (Hegel), who writes, "It glories in this pompous talk about doing what is best for humanity, about the oppression of humanity, about making sacrifices for the sake of the good, and the misuse of gifts. Ideal entities and purposes of this kind are empty, ineffectual words which lift up the heart but leave reason unsatisfied, which edify, but raise no edifice; declamations which specifically declare merely this: that the individual who professes to act for such noble ends and who deals in such fine phrases is in his own eyes an excellent creature" (The P of Spee, 234/390).