There’s been an endless rush of people doing this recently. They buy a new drink, go away, taste it, and the come back (usually by hovering around the till instead of queuing behind the ONE person who’s already ordering, like a polite human being) until I look up.
Then they say:
‘There’s something wrong with this drink.’
‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry, what’s wrong with it?’
‘Oh, it’s just a bit... INSERT RANDOM FACIAL EXPRESSION HERE’
Um. Okay. The first time this happened I just opened and closed my mouth a few times before spluttering:
‘Uhhh…um, okay, so what you’re saying is...’
They replied:
‘It’s just a bit…you know…INSERT DIFFERENT RANDOM FACIAL EXPRESSION’
‘Right…so it’s…bad?’
She then adopts a superior attitude and starts baby talking.
‘Ye-es…it’s ba-ad.’
Is the size wrong, Natalie?
Oh, well good to know you’re so comfortable with the mono-syllabic words that you can drag them out, but how about giving me a fucking vowel, here?
‘What’s exactly wrong with the drink, madam? Is it the temperature? The taste? The texture?’
See all these words I’m using? They’re ways of describing things. So if I was to say ‘this woman is really stupid’, stupid would be the adjective. See how this works?
‘It’s the taste!’
Aha, we have hit on SOMETHING. Even if it’s one of the least definitive things ever
‘It tastes a bit…RANDOM FACIAL EXPRESSION’
Too spicy?
Oh sweet lord, have mercy.
‘Would you like me to remake the drink, madam, or would you like a different beverage?’
‘I want something else, something that tastes more...GUMS MOUTH SEVERAL TIMES.’
Something that tastes more like a dog salivating over a sausage? Oh, okay, I’ll see what I can do. Would you maybe like something that tastes like half an eye-roll, three quarters of a smirk and a ding-dong noise? I could work on that for you.
Would you prefer decaf, Mr President?
For the love of baristas everywhere…USE YOUR WORDS. If it doesn’t taste right, then fine, get them to remake it. Or maybe you should have taken Food Tech at school where they made you sit around for hours exploring the use of words like bitter, sweet, savoury, spicy, strong, weak, tangy etc.
On the other end of the scale I had a woman who made that face, and then explained the drink was ‘vile. It’s just vile.’
‘What’s vile about a regular latte, madam? Is it bitter? Too strong? Did you want a sweetener in there?’
‘It’s just VILE, and I NEED you to do something about it.’
Possibly that something is only serving customers who are able to cultivate enough of a vocabulary to properly assess a situation and explain what the problem is without reverting to melodrama. I should just give up and go work with monkeys. I’m sure monkeys could tell me why the coffee was wrong. Without using any words. And I’d probably understand them perfectly.
...or squirrels?
Cafe Disaster 