So Britain has been plagued by bad weather recently. A light dusting of snow and the whole country has ground to a stand still. This prompts people to feel they have to state the obvious at each and every opportunity. “Cold, isn’t it?” customers inform me on a day to day basis. “It’s been snowing again,” the more observant of them point out.
Really? Jeez, I didn’t notice. When I’m not operating this coffee machine I’m locked up in a cage with no outside contact, cut off from the world with only left over Panini’s and stale coffee as sustenance. Thanks for informing me. I’ll pass on the news to the other caged monkeys (To be fair, I probably shouldn’t make light of the cage idea. If the company found out that it saved them money we’d never be allowed to leave the store ever again).
But the cold doesn’t just bring out the bleeding obvious from people. It also fucks up each and every bit of engineering that keeps our country running. Yesterday, due to the subzero temperature – and the fact that our country is about as prepared for snowfall as Poland was for the Nazis – a pipe burst under the street that our store is situated on and the entire row of shops were without flowing water. This isn’t particularly bad if you’re selling designer dresses, like the store next to us, but it’s a royal pain in the ass for us. Our coffee machine died, we were unable to wash dishes and our toilets stopped working (right when I needed to take a giant dump). A coffeeshop with no coffee is as pointless an internet setting with parental control turned on.
However, much to my surprise, the general public didn’t take it out on me when I informed them of the situation. I expected them to moan and cry and rage and start flipping over tables in caffeine depleted madness. But they didn’t. They just slumped in a defeated humph. It was as if everyone had just become used to the cold fucking them over repeatedly and now just accepted it as if it were just an inevitable inconvenience. They could go home that night and be told that their first born son had been picked up in a blizzard and carried six hundred miles before being dumped in the north sea somewhere near Norway and they’d still have the same reaction. In the fight between the cold and the British, the cold was sadly going to defeat us and we just had to accept it.
But the most amazing thing about this was what happened when the pipe was fixed and our machine started working again. It had been out of order for about two hours and the shop was virtually empty. However as soon as the water came back on and the first person got served a steaming hot latte , the doors burst open and people scrambled in as quick as they would if Cheryl Cole announced she was opening her legs to the general public. It was as if they had all been camped outside waiting eagerly, salivating like fat, teenage, female Goths awaiting the premier of the new Twilight movie. As soon as they heard the Espresso running again their caffeine sense went into overdrive and they became as excited as a dog in heat. Soon we had a queue to the door and it was back to business.
“Cold outside, isn’t it?” An old lady said at the head of the queue.
I wish the water was always off.
P. funneh.
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