Friday, April 28, 2006

Rude Assholes in Line

I don't normally drink coffee and now I have another reason not to - the ignorant, stupid people you might have to interact with while standing in line.

Case in point: this morning on the way to work I went to Starbucks because I needed a little lift. Starbucks is crowded; the line of customers is about 25 people deep extending from the counter to the door. Not moving very fast, either. About 5 minutes into the wait I'm in the middle of the queue, with about 10 people behind me. A young woman walks in, sees her friend in line (two people in front of me) and bee-lines right up to her to begin talking, conveniently ignoring all the other people in line before her waiting their turn, including me.

Me, the woman in front of me, and a few people behind me are all thinking the same thing: "That girl did not seriously just cut in line, did she?"

Oh yes she did.

There was a time when I wouldn't have cared that much about it - life's too short. But lately I'm big on calling people out on their shit when they do something ignorant or stupid. Because life is too short to let stupid people get away with stupid things. So when it becomes clear that this girl is not just having a quick convo with her friend before she retreats to the back of the line, but indeed plans to stay where she is, the following hilarious* interaction ensues:

Me: "Excuse me..."
Bitchy girl (BG) and her friend turn to me.
Me: "Curious if you're at all concerned about ignoring the dozen people behind you to cut in line to order your drink."
BG & F stare at me and say nothing for about 2 seconds. I've clearly embarrassed her. But to save face, BG looks at her friend with this look like I'm the rude asshole in this scenario. She then - not making this up - rolls her eyes to her friend and says to her: "Whatever" and starts talking again.
Me (who normally would have just left it at that but is now fired up because of her inappropriate response to my query): "Because we're not standing here in line waiting our turn just for laughs. We have places to get to too."
BG is blowing me off but upon hearing my comment pauses momentarily before saying "Anyway" to her friend.

And... Scene. That pretty much concludes today's performance of Rude Assholes in Line.
But the woman behind me did say to me a minute later, "I'm glad you said something because I can't believe she did that!" No problem - glad I could be of service.

Here is a photo of the perp. I hope her "extra hot grande non-fat soy latte" scalds her lips resulting in a trip to the emergency room causing her to miss "Mojito Night" at the Rhino, which OMG, was totally gonna be, like, awesome.
* And by "hilarious" I of course mean awkward and embarrassing for all invovled.

4 comments:

kb said...

the fact that you got a pic of the BG makes it even more awesome. and by "awesome" i mean... well... awesome.

Rob said...

Bravo, Will! I'm proud of you. The other week when I was traveling back from Boston with Colleen and my sons, we were without assigned seats. So, we got to the gate before the agents did, and got on line second. About five minutes later there were still just the two of us on line, and some douche bag walks up and puts his tiny duffle bag on the counter and stays there. I thought, "fine, he saw us both here, he's probably just tired and using the counter to lean on." Yeah, right. Wouldn't you know it, when the agent came up to the counter, he started in on his business. I stepped up and said, "Excuse me, I assumed you saw us when you walked up. Did you not?" He said, "Yeah, I did. Do you mind if I wanted to put my bag up here?" I replied, "I thought I did that very politely. Now please repect the line." He did a pewssst with his breath and got behind me. The ticket agent just shook her head at the guy.

My Godfather was once in a coffee shop, like you describe. A guy rushed in and cut in front of 10 or more people (no friend to provide cover). When someone said, "Hey, what are you doing?" his response was, "What? I'm hungry!" Talk about selfish.

Anonymous said...

I CAN'T BELIEVE you have a photo!! That's awesome. If I ever see her in a Starbucks in London some serious ass-kicking will occur. You can count on it!

By the way, it seems to be going around. Prashant blogged on the same thing!

Anonymous said...

I'm sitting at Starbucks now. I'm surrounded by the dregs of society. No, wait, I'm just in Seattle. Never mind, par for the course.