The Measure of Who You Are

I used to wonder why people pay big prices for a cup of coffee.  At my age, the idea of overpaying is a novelty, something I do when I have grandchildren in tow.  You wanted a pepperoni pizza?  Gramma’s got your back.  You took all of the pepperoni off of it because you don’t actually eat pepperoni; you just love ordering something that sounds more adult than cheese only?  Gramma understands.  We can put those nasty little circles of questionable meat in the trash and high five our way out of the restaurant.  You want a grande green tea latte, one pump classic, nonfat, two scoops of matcha?  Of course, Sweetie, let Gramma get her charge card out. 

However, Gramma alone, in her car wanting coffee is more likely to stop at McDonalds for a small black coffee than enter the brave new world of foreign sounding ingredients at six dollars a cup.  I am so immune to entering such a system that my grown daughter took me to a coffee shop, once, and right as we entered she whispered, “Let me do the ordering, I know what you want.”

It is easy to see why I puzzled so over a six dollar cup of coffee. But I think I may have cracked the code.  While many go as a way to throw caution to the wind and do something for themselves that is exotic, expensive, and self-indulgent without making it hard to pay the utilities, I fear others have motives much less pure.

People overpay for coffee so they can yell at the help.

We have a terrible view of mental health services in the US.  It is less shameful to scream at your children on Christmas Day than to see a counselor in October to prevent that. It is better to let people live in danger in a tent under a bridge than to see them going into the office of a counselor.  When I was a child, if someone was seen coming out of a bar, people were on the party telephone line letting everyone know of the degradation. Now, the texting goes on around someone “seeing a counselor.”  Did you know that so and so is seeing a counselor!?!  I wonder what that is all about!?!

So, those not ready for sleeping in an alley, but too injured in soul to contain their frustration go and order complicated drinks that they hope the help will get wrong.  Is it too hot?  Does it not taste like they got all six shots of espresso in there?  Was the whipped cream all melty when it was handed over? Good. Today I can scream at the help the way I could not scream at my boss, my children, my significant other.  I can teach the young ears of the barista all of the filthy words in my vocabulary.  I can vent over my venti the way I wanted to vent at my ex.  I paid big prices for this!  I meant for it to be perfect! And someone else’s child, wife, or husband had better get it just so or I can take off after them like a lion goes for a wounded okapi. 

It’s a stupid system. 

People with one hundred dollar restaurant tabs who do not leave a tip because they were not treated like King Louis VIII of France are a part of this culture.  You left a two cent tip? The help didn’t bow and scrape or they had a bad day and the service fell shy? And you added to their eight hours on their feet by showing you are mean to strangers? Congratulations. You are a winner. There should be a medal for that. We could call it the I Mistreat Strangers award. Because it is strangers, isn’t it? If the tables reverse and it is your loved one who is ill-treated, well that is another matter entirely. 

But it isn’t.

How you treat someone you do not know is a measure of who you are. Yelling, cheating, and mistreating strangers is a safety valve that tells you it is time to get yourself some help. If you love thinking you ruined someone’s day by giving them a piece of your mind, you may be in need of gathering up all of your mind’s pieces and making them whole again. Today’s skinny barista is the emergency room doctor who has to put your body back together tomorrow. The stringy headed clerk at the grocery that you yelled at got her eviction notice yesterday. What if the waiter you refused to tip is tomorrow the oncologist that handles your loved one’s cancer? 

I do not judge people who order expensive coffee. I let them out of the coffee parking lot and into the flow of traffic. I buy a lot of coffee gift cards just so friends and family can order their latte with non-fat and chocolate curls. But if I find out you yelled at the barista because the espresso was weak, I’ll gift you with fast food cards for sixty-five cent coffee where they forget to put creamer in the bag. 

I’ll also suggest you get help. Because the impulse that makes you unworthy of that cup should tell you it’s time to get your heart together and be well. And if a cup of coffee can teach us that, it was well worth the cost.