Tea and Sandwiches

As you could have guessed right now, the theme of this blog seems to be me putting the general public into teeny tiny little boxes. You might recognise yourself, or your friend? My dream is for one day, you to be ordering lunch with your mates and suddenly you see it! You exclaim: "You know so and so is totally a sandwich Lady!" That is what I'm hoping to achieve anyway.

So, what is a sandwich lady you ask? Oh, I'm sure everyone who has worked in a small cafe where the majority of customers are over 65 will understand this post. My colleague pointed this out to me the other day and I could have dropped dead it was so true. Sandwich people cause trouble. They are never easy. They are fussy and rude and rarely say hello when you greet them. They launch straight into the sandwich order like you are in a line at subway. Do I wear a viser? No. Do I just roll up and down a sandwich conveyor belt? No. I am taking your order, so please realise where you are. We are not Subway. So smile.

There is always a line of people ten deep behind them, and the café is full, but do you think they have looked around their surroundings to check out what it might be like.

They rattle off ten ingredients – and to be perfectly honest, it is usually elderly women – Avo, chicken, cheese, no beetroot. Wholemeal."

"Brown? We only have brown."

"So no wholemeal?"

I don’t know if what I said before makes sense. So I repeat it. "We only have brown or white."

"What about grain?"

I am a master of repetition. "We only have brown."

"I guess brown then."

I look up and smile. The people behind are restless, but know there is nothing I can do.

And then they rattle off the second sandwich whilst I am still writing down the first order. When I ask again what it was they look at me impatiently. Come on lady. You have lived a good 75 years, I'm sure you can take the time to repeat your sandwich order.

Now for drinks. You can see it, she’s been looking at the drink board, and you know they still haven’t decided when you get to the counter. It’s loud and the grinder is going full blast. They scream at you that they want a "POT OF TEA!"

"Tea?"

"YES TEA!"

"White or Black?"

She sighs. "I already said White Tea!"

I question her in my head. This plain out lie makes steam not come from the espresso machine, but out of my ears. I can easily put up with the no greeting and the brown or white grain crap. But when they plain out say they said something when they didn’t I want to slam down my pen and pull her up on it.

The grinder stops.

"White tea."

"A pot, not a cup."

"Yep." My smile has gone, and replaced is surley barista, with one word answers and sarcasm just etching to come
out.

After this exchange there are usually two or three more sandwich ladies per table. And when told they will have wait 20 minutes for their toasted sandwich they look at me with shock.

"Just letting you know in case you have some place to be."

I know they don’t have a place to be. They are 75. This is their place to be today.

They must accept this and they shuffle out of the café to a seat. Thank God their will be another 20 sandwich orders just like this one to come. Thank you sandwich ladies.