Thursday, March 20, 2008

Coffee and Cat-Sitting

I'm cat-sitting this week, and let me just put this out there: I'm a dog person and I so don't get cats.

They rub up against my legs, all purry, and then I reach down to pet, and they're gone in two seconds! I need a scruffy pet I can pat on the head. And that's all I have to say about that.

About coffee: at my regular Starbucks ( a 3 minute walk from my front door) I keep confounding my friendly baristas. I get into a groove: First, tall americano, then, grande iced coffee no sweetener, then venti iced green tea no sweetner, and now a tall bold of the day. They get into my rhythm too, knowing what I want as soon as I walk up. But as soon as it gets so predictable they don't ask anymore, I change it. Then for a couple of weeks as I go through the various staff, I piss off the old-timers and confuse the newbies who were told, "she's the venti iced green tea lady." I can't tell if I do this on purpose. I don't think I do -- I just change my order every two months or so.

But then again, I consider how much I hate it when someone thinks they "know me." Drives me crazy. "Oh, I know you.... You want a grande iced coffee with no sweetener." Or, "Oh I know you, you're supporting Obama because you're a bleeding heart liberal." Or, "I know you, you are a Libra and so you like to weigh everything and can't make any decisions." Never mind that this is all true. I simply don't like people thinking they can make such simplistic statements. And I get so damn contrary about it too: "No. I CAN too make a decision. Just now, I was wondering whether to smack you upside your head and I have made a definite decision on that one." I think it's because my mom, in imagining that I got into the same trouble she did, but knowing she couldn't catch me at it,used to say, "I know you like the back of my hand." To this day, she knows me less than my baristas do.

So today, I got a tall Verone with a little room, and my barista said, "switching it up again?" I said, "Maybe. Maybe not." How dare he claim to know me. I'm going back to the iced venti green tea no sweetener tomorrow. We'll see who knows who then, won't we???

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That reminds me of a great quote, "The physicists say that I am a mathematician, and the mathematicians say that I am a physicist. I am a completely isolated man and though everybody knows me, there are very few people who really know me."

YES. It really is on that level of greatness! :)

Anonymous said...

By the way, that was Einstein. Hell yeah, it was.