i walk through town. cold winter afternoon, bag of letraset pens and paper from hoby craft, happily in hand. money in my pocket, confusion in my head. i'm trying to decide what beverage to buy from costa. i'm torn between trying a strawberry shortcake friscatto, a sicilian lemonade fruit cooler or an iced caramel latte....or i could just order the usual vanilla iced latte.........i go in, my mind still wandering over these things. i notice the line is medium sized. "excellent" i think in my head. "this'll give me time to decide what i'll have".
the line gets smaller and time to think is consumed by pulling out my bulging wallet and picking out an approprate ammount of change to pay. i get to the counter and the woman at the till adresses me "hello sir". her accent boasted swedish ethnicity. the one thing everyone fears is a recently new staffed foreign worker in a place they are used to. her accent was thick and threw me off. "how can i help you?" she asked as i approached the till. in that split second my mind rushes. "oh yes...uumm" i say as i look up at the menu boards. "iced coffee, fruit cooler, strawberry shortcake, iced coffee, fruit cooler, strawberry shortcake" my mind speaks to itself. "uuhh i'll have a medium, iced vannila latte, to go thanks". my fate to drink the same drink every time was sealed. i had said to myself "try something new" 5 minutes before i went in and allas i had ordered the same thing again. the woman at the machine pilled ice into a plastic cup, layered it with vannila coffee syrup, milk and a single cup of esspresso. she wipped the condensation from the cup on her apron, said "here you go sir" and handed it to me. i thanked her and left. "i'm the most awkward fucker in this universe" i thought ot myself, recalling the ammount of time it took me to order. i sip my drink sullenly.