Rude Coffee and Bumpy Rides
I walked into Starbucks this morning, and the young punk behind the counter greeted me with, “talk to me.” He obviously didn’t understand that he was being extremely rude. I decided to treat what he said literally and with the most clueless face I could muster I replied, “what do you want me to talk about?”
At least the girl at the register was nice, so I only talked to her and ignored him from that point forward. As I was walking away he said, “I hope you have a better day.” Jerk.
It’s one thing to be unintentionally rude by not knowing better, I can tell when someone with inadequate social skills is being sincere. It is inexcusable to try to be cool and as a result appear extremely disrespectful. So this kid behind the counter lacks essential clues about respecting others, I hope he learns a few essential social skills for the sake of all the other people who will encounter him in the future.
This little exchange happened after I suffered through another example of how the CTA can turn my morning commute into a masochistic thrill ride. Maybe the train operators enjoy torturing us. They like to pack us in and toss us around, accelerating and stopping as hard as possible then randomly proceed at an extremely slow crawl prompting many of us to anxiously glance at our watches. At least it was Saturday so it wasn’t as crowded as usual.
There is an explanation for the bad train service. They are doing construction on the tracks and it is unfortunately going to get worse starting in April. I have been seriously considering getting a cheap bike.
After the bumpy and rude start, my day turned out good. I had to remember that life is 10% of what happens to me and 90% of my reaction to it.