Soya cappuccinos. The bane of my life.

Dear Diary,

In truth that's what 'blogging' is: an online diary. This can provoke two main reactions from my audience

1. Giggling like a 5-year-old girl who just uncovered her sister's hidden diary and a lifetime of blackmail. Remind you of anyone, Ruby? November the 6th 2003, the day I gained power.
2. A re-evaluation of one's life; recognising one has nothing better to do than read my blog. If you decide to stop reading now, I think you should remember I still get a hit on Blogspot and hence feel super good about myself. 

So let's carry on, shall we?...

So what to rant about this evening... As I often complain about meaningless things that have very little significance in anyone's life but my own, I'll do the same again. I hate working. Yes, somehow I was able to attain an actual job. I would say it was good luck, if you call 'good luck' a lot of lying on your CV. I won't name the shop specifically due to copyright reasons - darn those bastards in Human Resources! So for legal reasons let us say that it is a frozen yogurt shop in Mill Hill... yes... conspicuous. If that doesn't work, I'll simply have to call my lawyer who lives next door. His name is Mr. Bigglesworth and he is a cat.

This weekend I worked for 15 hours... 15 hours. I'm going to break this down for you (because I've had a substantial amount of time to think about doing so), 900 minutes or 54000 seconds. Clearly, this longs out my life. In this time I surely could have done something productive, like invent the world's biggest vacuum cleaner similar to the one that sucked the life out of me. Oh no, wait. That was this shop.

The customers are the best thing about this shop, all eight of them. So wonderful to observe, watch, judge; an anthropologists dream and a young teenage girl's nightmare. I've had one Jewish family come in in the past 2 hours. They bought a small cup with no toppings and shared... typical. Perhaps the guy that winks at me would serve as a better subject to study. I call him Blinks McCoy, a slight Scottish accent and 3 years champion of the National Staring Competition. He's a wonderful character and always seems to be on the phone whilst ordering. He likes to repeat the same few phrases, such as; "Yes, we can close the deal, I'll email you" (WINK), "Oh dolly, you know you're special" (WINK), "Yeah, last night was brilliant" (WINK). My reply: a coy, nervous and uncomfortable laugh.

Then there is the most anal couple on the planet; a pair of new-earth contemporary sold-out bohemians living in their mediocre-sized home in Mill Hill, riding wistfully on their failed dreams and taking their dog to a Frozen Yoghurt place to have coffee every day... how avant-garde. Can't they just do me a favour and go to the Costa across the road? So where do I begin... I imagine their names are something totally incompatible to the look they are trying to achieve, perhaps Mr and Mrs Smith, even though they wish they were called Apollo and Rain. Perhaps their detestable look would work if they weren't the most harrowing people I'd ever met in my life. Mrs. Smith likes to bring in her own soya milk to the shop. That's right. And expects us to keep it in our fridge... for her sole benefit. Herein lies the recent issue we had. She came into the shop, as per usual, appearing as though she had a bad smell under her nose. Maybe she too could smell trouble.

Ordering her kooky soya milk cappuccino with a sense of normality, my colleague proceeded to remove said necessary soya milk carton from fridge. But wait, what ho? Her face began to turn bright red and her pierced lips began to wither even more (which originally I couldn't conceive to be humanly possible). "That carton was full when I bought in yesterday: who's been using it? That is my milk". I felt the need the need to duck and cover as she flung herself over the counter. Well it all kicked of from there really. The issue is, she needs to recognise that this is a shop and not her kitchen. I wanted to explain to her that Costa have soya milk... which they provide themselves and probably for half the price. But I didn't. I fear death.

Arguably however, the best customer of my day was my own mother. She waltzed in at around 7pm, took a good look around and muttered not-too-quietly under her breath "What a shithole...". I stood, gob-smacked... next to my manager.

Home time couldn't come soon enough.