I
can’t remember the exact story I was telling Shannon way back when, but I do
remember that the events I was relating required me to pause and announce what
I see as one of my central virtues.
“Look,”
I began, “I’m a patient gu—”
“No
you’re not,” Shannon said, and proceeded to laugh.
A
minute and a half later, when she showed no signs of stopping, I finally had to
interrupt.
“I’m
not patient is what you’re saying?”
“Sweetie,”
she said, “you’re many things, but ‘patient’ isn’t one of them.”
I
had filed this little conversation away but had cause to remember it a few
weeks ago, when I was running late for a meeting at school yet nevertheless
stopped at a nearby Starbucks. As I reached the door, a couple of young girls
no older than fourteen were coming from the other direction, so I opened the
door for them and gestured them ahead. They giggled out a “thank you” and
skittered toward the line. I went inside and fell in behind them.
Which
is when I realized my mistake.
I
assume that everyone orders as quickly as I do at Starbucks—a grande of
whichever of the three roasts looks best, a little room for cream. My average
time to complete the transaction is around 17.5 seconds, and I was counting on
this rapidity if I was going to make my meeting.
The
girls, however, were operating on a different clock. The two of them stood and
pointed and debated what they should get. Then they asked several questions of
the cashier and then conferred with each other again.
Oh
c’mon, I thought, regretting my gesture of opening the door for them.
Behind
me in line was a mother and her two children, and I sighed loudly in attempt to
get her attention so that I could throw her a “high school girls, amiright?”
eye roll, but she was studying the menu on the wall herself. I shifted my feet
and blew air through my lips in an effort to hurry the girls along in their
deliberations. When they finally ordered, I saw one of the girls lean and say
something to the cashier, who couldn’t hear what she was saying.
Ohfershitsake…let’s
GO already…
The
girl called the cashier closer, cupped her hand to the cashier’s ear, and
whispered something. Then she handed the cashier her phone so that she could
scan her Starbucks app, which is I guess how the kids pay for coffee these
days.
The
girls moved on, and I made a somewhat douchey display of finally
reaching the counter, but I suspect that I was the only one attuned to my
subtle physical actions.
I
ordered my coffee and reached for my wallet, but the cashier told me that the
two girls had already paid for me.
I
wish I could report that this little incident miraculously transformed my
default mode from “MOVE, GodDAMmit!” to “Oh no, please, after you,” but in
truth, the changeover has been gradual.
I
am trying, though.
