As you know, I’m partial to the odd customer-critique. But sometimes, I wonder whether I go too far. I’m so used to observing mishaps and spinning them into dramatised stories I don’t even bother investigating the reason why a customer might order, say, decaf. Perhaps they have a life-threatening allergy. If so, it hardly seems fair to give them a hard time for it.

So recently, when a lady ordered an almond long mac with half decaf and half espresso, I decided that I would try and understand her, rather than think up the many ways I could turn this incident into a story for this blog.

“What’s the theory behind that?”

“I’m lactose intolerant.”

“I mean the half decaf, half espresso part,” I clarified.

“Well, I like the strength of a long mac. But I can’t have that much caffeine.”

Fair enough. A perfectly reasonable explanation, I thought. Finicky, but reasonable. So, instead of critiquing her, I graciously put the order through the machine and said, “That’s eight dollars.”

“What?” she said. “Eight dollars! What for?”

“Well, you see, almond is an extra 50 cents. And we have to dose two baskets—one decaf, the other regular. So really, what you’re getting is an almond latte with a single decaf espresso on the side. And that comes to eight dollars.”

“That’s outrageous.” She paid. But did so in a huff. Then, she stormed to a table.

Now that, I thought, is worthy of a turning into a story.