..not order coffee at Dunkin Donuts

The following really happened to me...the other day. This is the stuff of sitcoms set in New York City.

I was stopping by Dunkies on the way home, to get my mom a beverage, as she had been watching my kids. I can see there are only a couple people inside, and a spot out front, so I decide to go in, rather than use the drive thru, because those little metal boxes piss me off in general, especially when the person inside has a thick accent, which accentuates the whole communication problem. I actually got pies instead of fries at a McDonalds once.

Anyway, I am standing behind the sole customer in the store, a young woman, when her friend who had been sitting down, stands up and exclaims, "Wait, I decided I want a coffee after all."

She turns to the clerk ... yes he is a clerk not a barrista -  that shit's for Starbucks and other snooty places, and says, "I'll have an medium iced, french vanilla, in a hot cup, with 5 melted sugars, caramel, and a shot of turbo." I'm pretty sure the clerk had a stroke after she said 5 melted sugars, because I watched his head tilt dramatically to one side and his eyes became wide, and a little drool might have even slipped out.

How do you know I am not making this up? Because I wrote it down on a receipt I had in my pocket, in case the police wanted evidence to what happened to the poor clerk. He slurred his response, but I believe it translated into, "Say that again? " And I wrote it down  as she repeated it, so it's pretty fucking accurate. Enough to get her on voluntary manslaughter anyway. So, by this time, there is a line of 4 people behind me. The first guy is some old dude, who you know just wants a small black, because that's the way he's been drinking it since WWII. I turned and looked at him and I wasn't sure if he was more amazed at her order, or what she was wearing. She had one of those puffy bright white vests, the kind you can only wear once and then have to throw away, because the dust in the air makes it dingy, jeans with that bullshit embroidery on the back pockets. Leather boots that keep making her ankles kick out like a kid's first outing on ice skates, those glamour glasses and the (fake?) designer bag. Anyway, the guy behind him looks like the guy that desperatly still wants to buy a cruller, but has to settle for that crappy cruller replacement, a glazed stick . And the chick either with him, or behind him, I'm pretty sure wants a decaf with equal. So we're trying to figure out if we should just walk away now, or if we're going to get in trouble for leaving the scene of a crime. That poor schmuck of a clerk tries his best. He comes the first time holding a coffee in a cup and a cold cup with ice in it in the other hand. I know something else is wrong, but I can't figure it out. She turns him away. Then he comes back again and had put something in like hazelnut or some shit, and she says, "No, I didn't want that." Finally he comes back the last time, still with 2 cups, the cold one with ice in it only, and she says, "Okay, I'll take it, I guess you tried your best."

I step up and the clerk kid purses his lips and blows out the 5 liters of air he's been holding in, when I order 2 regular decafs and a muffin. He still doesn't say anything, so I'm pretty sure the stroke affected the area of his brain that handles speech, not motor function.