Infidelity in hospitality
Never Cheat on Your Coffee Person
Click this article to read more, you bastards
I had been up until 12.34 writing this very article.
You might not think that’s possible, but it is. As Kurt Vonnegut said,
It is just an illusion we have here on earth that one moment follows another like beads on a string and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.
Not everybody exists in linear time, you weirdos.
Anyhoo, 12.34 was late for an old bastard like me — especially as I had been chowing down Lindt balls and drinking Stella Artois all night.
My body felt like a dried out raccoon dropping in the sun.
Still, rather than reach for the life-giving power of H2O, I hit the mean streets of Footscray in search of The Darkness, aka Cocaine Jr, aka The Black Liver Punch, aka Cawfee.
I had to go back to my usual place since the day before I had bought coffee from the place four doors up instead and I felt guilty.
I tried somewhere new for a couple of reasons.
Firstly the cups at my regular place sometimes made a weird bird noise when you drank out of them.
ERRRRP — — EEERP — — ‘twas like a magpie was bathing in my cup.
Also, the place was well-known for baristas drawing pictures of famous landmarks and symbols on the top of the coffee. It was probably the main reason people went there. The artists were excellent, but it took twenty minutes to get your drink.
If the coffee were shit, I wouldn’t have bothered.
To me, art is art, and coffee is coffee. Unfortunately, this place was damn good at both. To that point, I had received the Sydney Opera House, the Mona Lisa, and Jeff Bezos’s penis-shaped rocket.
I heard that one guy got fired for drawing a Svastika and claiming it was both a historical artifact and an ancient Indian symbol that pre-dated Hitler’s copyright infringement.
He had a point, I reckon — the barista, not Hitler, obviously.
Anyway, I had tried this new place four doors up, which turned out to be shit anyway, and without thinking, I walked past my regular place with the cup in my hand.
I saw him squinting at me out the window.
He must have been thinking,
‘Is that Frank? With a motherfucking coffee? Surely that’s not possible.’
I felt like Hugh Grant on Hollywood Boulevard — I had become the cheating bastard I never wanted to be. And for what? The coffee was shit. It meant absolutely nothing to me.
Now I had to go and face the music.
‘Morning’, I said to the guy whose name I didn’t know yet but who somehow looked at me like we were lovers, and I had sucked his neighbour’s dong for money.
He nodded coldly and aggressively steamed a jug of milk.
‘Oh, Hi Frank,’ said the usual girl.
‘What can I get you today?’
I like to change up my coffee orders to teach people that we are not all dismal knobs that order the same damn thing every day. Sometimes I get a chai, sometimes a coffee. Sometimes I get almond milk, sometimes soy, sometimes I get honey, sometimes not. Never regular milk as I am a recovering milk addict.
My random ordering had become an ongoing joke in the place — a coffee joke among friends — one that was never funny at any stage. Still, I played my part, flashing yellowing teeth behind my relic of a covid mask and snorting a half-laugh.
‘I’ll just get an almond latte,’ I said, trying to make it as simple as possible.
I leaned towards the barista. He was an odd-looking guy with a significant burn mark down one side of his face and an eye patch.
‘I’m sorry about yesterday.’ I mumbled.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I’m sorry about yesterday. I don’t know what I was thinking.’
‘Sorry?’
Now the bastard was acting as if he didn’t know who I was.
I considered if I was just freaking out over nothing. Maybe he didn’t even see me. The light was quite bright.
Maybe he was just squinting at his reflection.
A sense of relief came over me.
‘Never mind,’ I said and went to wait outside as usual.
It was a beautiful day, and the crisp, blue sky was a metaphor for the freedom I felt since realising I had gotten away with my adulterous act.
My coffee came out, and it had a picture of a crow on it. I wandered back up the street, drinking and praising the barista for his skill.
I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the girl from behind the counter and she handed me a note.
I sat down on a brick wall and unfolded the paper.
Hiya Frank,
It’s Greg from the coffee shop.
I just want you to know I made you a special coffee today.
I call it an almond knobspresso.
It’s like a standard almond latte, only I stuck my dick in it and stirred it 3 x clockwise and 1x anti-clockwise. I hope you like it better than the other coffee you have been getting on the side.
Lots of love,
Greg
I nodded and looked into the sky.
I knew the bastard had noticed.
I whispered touche to Greg and held up my cup to toast him before taking another swig. It did have a unique flavour. I thought to myself that Greg’s knob must taste delicious. It was a shame I would never get to taste it.
I drank the coffee faster than usual and chucked the cup in the bin. I reread the note, chuckled to myself, and turned it over. There was writing on the other side.
PS. I laced your latte with a strong laxative. It takes about eight minutes to kick in. Good luck
I made some calculations. I was about eleven minutes from home — that brilliant bastard.
It happened about three hundred metres out. My stomach cramped like never before, and I ducked into a random garden and exploded all over the geraniums.
I called the cops and gave them the note, but it was written in invisible ink.
The head detective lit up a cigarette, then set fire to the blank piece of paper saying ‘Nice Story Kid’.
The next day I went to see Greg, but he was gone. The girl explained it was his last day, and he had gone to join the Navy.
I shook my fist and put on a Liam Neeson accent.
‘I will find you, and I will kill you.’
I knew where Greg was. The bastard was in the navy surrounded by trained military personnel. it was far too dangerous to pursue him there.
Instead, I went back to Greg’s first day at the coffee shop.
I recalled the story of the old granny who spilled the 473 degrees McDonalds black coffee on herself. I never usually order black coffee.
‘I’ll have a black coffee, extra hot, please.’ I said to Greg — a fresh-faced coffee making artist with dreadlocks.
I waited, watching him until he walked the black lava innocently over to me.
That’s when I pulled out my air horn and,
HOOOONNNKKKKK
Greg threw scalding hot coffee all over his face.
I casually wandered out of the shop like a calm assassin and watched from across the street as the ambulance arrived.
I pulled out my notebook, and I wrote:
I had been up until 12.34 writing this very article…
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