Under the coffee machine and behind loose plumbing was an empty bag of tea, specifically English Breakfast tea.

I knelt down, reaching to the back of the cupboard, and shook the bag. A few leaves rattled freely at the bottom.

The depletion was not uncommon. As a speciality coffee shop, tea was an afterthought, an incidental accessory, and yet I do admit that, while not a primary offering, a cafe without English Breakfast is like a sausage roll without tomato sauce. So I wasn't surprised the customer at the counter was incredulous, after I said the tea had, unfortunately, ran out.

"What?" she said. "No tea?"

"We've run out, sorry," I said.

"The English Breakfast ran out?" She said.

"Yes, mam," I said. "See." I showed her the inside of the bag.

"None?"

"Correct."

"Not even out the back?"

"In storage, you mean?"

"Yes."

"No."

"No what?"

"No tea," I said.

"What about spare tea bags?"

I stood at the counter, shaking my head. "We have peppermint?"

"No. I really wanted an English Breakfast." She, the grown woman in a corporate dress, was almost stomping her feet now, making a deep-furrowed frown.

Finally, she said: "I'll have chai, then."

—

I was 10 when I went to the cinema unaccompanied by an adult for the first time. I remember counting down the days in the lead-up. As a child, an afternoon of respite from the overbearing supervision of parents for an entire afternoon conjured up a feeling similar to the elation of Kate Winslet in the "Titanic" scene where she gasps, "I'm flying", while standing on the bow railing at the apex of the ship with her arms outstretched like wings.

I went with my cousin Toffa, who's the same age. Knowing we had limited time and budget, we planned the field trip meticulously. Given the rarity of the occasion, we didn't want to waste a minute or a dime.

I arrived at Toffa's house precisely three hours before the film because the cinema popcorn was outrageously expensive—collectively, we had $13.65—and we needed time to walk to Coles and buy a kilogram of kernels for $6.50, plus resealable bags.

At home, we laid the ingredients on the kitchen table. I said, "That is a lot of popcorn." Not to eat, but to sneak into the cinema. For we planned to stash the movie snacks in our undies.

The film didn't start for another two hours. So we held off cooking the popcorn and instead searched the house for clothing items that had deep pockets or really any alternative storage solution that didn't involve vast amounts of scolding kernels resting under the groin.

After finding a trenchcoat in the dress up box, we decided that to arrive at the movies earlier enough to score the best seats—middle and centre, of course—then we better start making the popcorn. Besides, we were hungry, now, to the point where I could even smell the kernels popping in butter.

As I turned the corner into the kitchen, though, I realised that hunger hadn't induced the smell but my older cousin Sarah's boyfriend who was now sitting around the island bench eating the last of the popcorn.

He later exclaimed he was only feeling peckish. For a man close to seven foot tall, though, satisfying a faint appetite meant eating the entire packet.

At least he was courteous enough to leave the packaging on the table and a few unpopped kernels at the bottom of a bowl.

Standing in the kitchen, I scowled Sarah's boyfriend who was now sunbathing outside, slouching back, looking entitled. Here, behind the island bench, I then dreamt up several scenarios where I magically grew to seven foot, too, but also filled out like Hulk so I could re-enact the scene in "The Lion King" where the resentful Scar (me) pushes Mufasa (Sarah's boyfriend) off a cliff.

And I would have continued to daydream had my aunt, who just arrived home, not walked into the room and ordered that I clean up the popcorn bowls and packaging before I left for the movies.

—

The cafe only had powdered chai that came in 2-kilogram bags and had a used by date around a decade away, which meant we ordered the product by bulk and consequently never ran out. That was until the previous morning, anyway, when apparently a horde of chai drinkers had dined in and finished the last 300 grams and because the suppliers had messed up the order the previous week by overlooking three items (with chai being one of them), the cafe had no reserves. I wasn't told that, though. I found out by upending the bag and watching an eighth of a teaspoon of chai dust drift into the glass.

"What do you mean you ran out of chai?" the woman said after I informed her.

"We ran out."

"But you said you had chai."

"I'm sorry. I thought we did."

"And now you don't."

"Yes."

"So what should I do?"

"I guess that's up to you, mam."

"What do you have, then?"

"Peppermint tea. And coffee," I said to which she made some scathing remarks and frustrated grunts before finally getting up and saying, "Bugger the lot of ya." And with that, she was gone.

A co-worker walked into the cafe from the kitchen out the back and said: "What the hell was that all about?"

"A customer wanted English Breakfast tea and then chai but we've run out of both."

"It's just sitting out the back there," the co-worker said.

"What?"

"The delivery came two hours ago. Look," he said, pointing to the mound of boxes containing the chai and English Breakfast tea.

—

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