No one likes a smartass. Especially in the Espresso industry.

“Hello sir. How can I help you?” I ask.
“I’ve got one leg shorter than the other,” he replies and then chuckles to himself manically. I hang my head and sigh. This is going to be a long order.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” I readjust my question, trying to make it as direct as possible so as to avoid him interpreting it to fit his “comedy” style.
“Well I’m in a coffeeshop so I probably want a coffee. Not rocket science is it.” He laughs again and then nudges his wife, a plump woman with a shallow stare, who gives a small smile to her husband and then makes depressed eye contact with me suggesting the burke does it all the time.

Every now and again we get a comedian in. Someone who thinks that they are so uncontrollably funny that they have to project jokes loudly to everyone and anyone in a seven mile radius. Usually they are kids who think they’re being dreadfully clever without realising they are coming across as punchable bellends. Sadly this guy is a fully grown man in his fifties and really should know better.
“What coffee would you like?” I ask through gritted teeth. I can feel the enamel grinning away into dust.
“Two white coffees please. None of that foam. I want a coffee not a bubble bath,” he says still laughing to himself.
I make the coffees and then ask in my driest tone, “Anything to eat or anymore witticisms with that?”
He doesn’t pick up the loathing in my voice. “I see you have fat free muffins! Fat free?!” He looks up and around the store as if expecting everyone to be gazing at him, waiting for him to deliver his next punchline. “Well where does all the fat go? Is it sucked out and put on some muffin fat mountain somewhere!” His last sentence is barely comprehensible because it is almost drowned out by his now uncontrollably raucous laughter.
No one else is laughing.
The customers behind him stare with the sort of contempt that Haitians have for sudden earth movements .
He doesn’t have a clue.

It’s really sad when this happens. Mentally unstable old men with no sense of self awareness making absolute tits out of themselves in public, thinking they are Billy Connolly but actually coming across as an idiotic boob, a real life David Brent. I mean shit, if Chemical Ali is getting executed for gassing Kurds then this guy definitely needed to be hung for spouting such unfunny noxious fumes from his pie hole.

So here’s a protip for any of you wannabe stand-up comedians; before you start spreading your mirth to anyone and everyone, do an open mic night down your local and listen to the response your jokes get. If the only response you get from the room is of yawning, tumbleweeds and empty pint glasses being thrown at you, don’t come into public buildings and try out your routine on an undeserving coffee shop employee. Because one day you’ll do it when one of us are at breaking point and you’ll find your grinning face being smashed repeatedly on an espresso machine before having it jammed in the Panini toaster.
Bastards.