...ruffles...

A few months ago I started getting a Costa Coffee Latte with my petrol. Then it became my Friday morning treat. The same bloke served me every week. Just prior to Christmas he engaged in some light discussion.

I went in a couple of times over Christmas, he asked me how my Christmas was, then how my New Year was and when I was going back to work. I wasn’t wholly comfortable with this. He was being nice, and my discomfort was my failing not his. I’m just not very good at small talk and we had few shared experiences on which to hook any conversation – he knows I like Lattes, he knows I was wearing shorts on boxing day, I know he get ‘fucking pissed off’ when he spills steaming hot milk all over his trousers. Beyond this there was little to discuss.

Still, he pursued the friendship, he started serving me large Lattes not regular as requested, and he even gave me two complimentary chocolates rather than one. It was all getting a bit Brokeback.

I haven’t been in for a couple of weeks, last week I was ill and just didn’t feel like a coffee. The week before I was in meetings and was Latte’ed up to the eyeballs. This morning I went in… and he didn’t recognise me. He just served me a regular Latte and didn’t even ask me how I was. We have drifted apart. Having not liked the fact he tried to engage in discussion with me; I now don’t like the fact he ignored me. I am never happy.

Labels: General me