As a passive-aggressve Antipodean, one of the things which makes me most happy is order, politeness and knowing the goddamn system. When any, or all, of these elements goes awry I start to climb my mental clocktower and silently begin going postal. Of course, to the average troglodyte bystander, it would appear as though I am carefree, content and happily observing the hustle and bustle of everyday life. No, in reality I am disemboweling you and your future progeny in my mind.
Allow me a little self indulgence as I outline my highly- structured morning routine. It is sacred. It cannot be messed with. I know it as precisely as John Patrick Mason knows the fire breathing mechanism's timing to enter The Rock. In fact, anyone lucky enough to witness the phenomenon which is my morning routine would be my own personal Stanley Goodspeed. I set my alarm to unleash its ungodly wail a full hour before I am to awake. Then, I proceed to slap at the snooze function like an ill-mannered ranga for 75 minutes. As I awake in a panic, I stumble over the resident manimal and run into my kitchen/home office/living room/dining room/ mudroom/ library and microwave a cup of opaque Brooklyn water until it is approximately tepid. As it absorbs the nuclear rays, I turn on the shower so it can use its full 4 minutes to warm up. I dump a bunch of Folgers "coffee" in to the cup and drink it IN the shower as I try to rinse away the detritus resulting from sleeping on a 12 year old futon. As the dulcet tones of Soterius Johnson tell me it is 7.51, I run out of the house knowing that it the subway is anything less than 100% efficient I am screwed. In fact, the whole thing looks a little something like this...
So, dear reader, as you can imagine, being the Mark Spitz of the commute, I have little patience for fucking around at the other end. I have exactly 6 minutes to get to Starbucks (easy Liberals, in the culture-starved Financial District, this is all I have), get my Red Eye and get the hell out. The people at this SBs know this. They are refugees from a post-2007 world. They remember the heady days when the streets of Lower Manhattan were populated with real-life Daddies. The times when a broker might eat your face off in a coke-fueled frenzy if they didn't get their doppio in a timely manner. They get me my coffee, take my cash and bid me adieu in under 4 minutes. I am often enthralled by their caffeinated call- and -response siren song. Sometimes they even call me "young lady".
Well, imagine my horror when this morning I was greeted with utter chaos. My beloved team was in the proverbial weeds. Unfortunately, being the consummate professionals that they are, they had managed to disguise the full direness of the situation until post-order. I realized while I watched the "man" at the counter poke vaguely at the computer and ask the lady in front of me if it was "a coffee or a coffee cake?" while making windmills with his arms in the universal sign for cake, that I was in serious trouble. Then I looked over and saw another "man" with glasses as thick as the night-time partition at my local bodega manning the espresso machine and literally screaming. He was waving Christmas themed cups and screaming. The horror.
I looked around for a possible answer, and in an instant it became clear. They gave themselves away with their sneakers and industrial size backpacks lovingly nestled like Quato on their fronts. Tourists. Finnish tourists. As an array of flavored venti coffees came pouring out, they looked at the myopic screaming man with dead children-of-the corn eyes. I knew at this juncture that I had to make my move.
As things ground to a halt I knew my red eye was not coming. I made a rash decision, foolhardy even. Someday, when my grandchildren ask me why I did it, I will still have no answer. I grabbed the nearest grande cup and booked. I didn't look back. Like an errant marine, I abandoned my men in the heat of battle. Semper Fidelis meant nothing to me as I speed-walked up Broadway with nary a look back. Well, kids, karma came along and f-ed me royal because I ended up with something that tasted like a grande candy corn soy splenda vomitaccino with WHIP!
Fuck you Finnish tourists. If you don't know the system, wait until after 9 to mince around downtown. Why you are up at such an ungodly hour when you are allegedly on vacation is a mystery to me. The Broadway Bull's nuts will still be available for you to pose under at 10.
Allow me a little self indulgence as I outline my highly- structured morning routine. It is sacred. It cannot be messed with. I know it as precisely as John Patrick Mason knows the fire breathing mechanism's timing to enter The Rock. In fact, anyone lucky enough to witness the phenomenon which is my morning routine would be my own personal Stanley Goodspeed. I set my alarm to unleash its ungodly wail a full hour before I am to awake. Then, I proceed to slap at the snooze function like an ill-mannered ranga for 75 minutes. As I awake in a panic, I stumble over the resident manimal and run into my kitchen/home office/living room/dining room/ mudroom/ library and microwave a cup of opaque Brooklyn water until it is approximately tepid. As it absorbs the nuclear rays, I turn on the shower so it can use its full 4 minutes to warm up. I dump a bunch of Folgers "coffee" in to the cup and drink it IN the shower as I try to rinse away the detritus resulting from sleeping on a 12 year old futon. As the dulcet tones of Soterius Johnson tell me it is 7.51, I run out of the house knowing that it the subway is anything less than 100% efficient I am screwed. In fact, the whole thing looks a little something like this...
So, dear reader, as you can imagine, being the Mark Spitz of the commute, I have little patience for fucking around at the other end. I have exactly 6 minutes to get to Starbucks (easy Liberals, in the culture-starved Financial District, this is all I have), get my Red Eye and get the hell out. The people at this SBs know this. They are refugees from a post-2007 world. They remember the heady days when the streets of Lower Manhattan were populated with real-life Daddies. The times when a broker might eat your face off in a coke-fueled frenzy if they didn't get their doppio in a timely manner. They get me my coffee, take my cash and bid me adieu in under 4 minutes. I am often enthralled by their caffeinated call- and -response siren song. Sometimes they even call me "young lady".
Well, imagine my horror when this morning I was greeted with utter chaos. My beloved team was in the proverbial weeds. Unfortunately, being the consummate professionals that they are, they had managed to disguise the full direness of the situation until post-order. I realized while I watched the "man" at the counter poke vaguely at the computer and ask the lady in front of me if it was "a coffee or a coffee cake?" while making windmills with his arms in the universal sign for cake, that I was in serious trouble. Then I looked over and saw another "man" with glasses as thick as the night-time partition at my local bodega manning the espresso machine and literally screaming. He was waving Christmas themed cups and screaming. The horror.
I looked around for a possible answer, and in an instant it became clear. They gave themselves away with their sneakers and industrial size backpacks lovingly nestled like Quato on their fronts. Tourists. Finnish tourists. As an array of flavored venti coffees came pouring out, they looked at the myopic screaming man with dead children-of-the corn eyes. I knew at this juncture that I had to make my move.
As things ground to a halt I knew my red eye was not coming. I made a rash decision, foolhardy even. Someday, when my grandchildren ask me why I did it, I will still have no answer. I grabbed the nearest grande cup and booked. I didn't look back. Like an errant marine, I abandoned my men in the heat of battle. Semper Fidelis meant nothing to me as I speed-walked up Broadway with nary a look back. Well, kids, karma came along and f-ed me royal because I ended up with something that tasted like a grande candy corn soy splenda vomitaccino with WHIP!
Fuck you Finnish tourists. If you don't know the system, wait until after 9 to mince around downtown. Why you are up at such an ungodly hour when you are allegedly on vacation is a mystery to me. The Broadway Bull's nuts will still be available for you to pose under at 10.
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