flanerie.org

I was in Costa Coffee a couple of weeks ago, ordering my usual. Readers outside the UK only need to know that Costa is the UK equivalent of Starbucks. Well, Starbucks is the UK equivalent of Starbacks but over here they are utterly inept and Costa are better at being Starbucks than Starbucks are.

I once went into a UK Starbucks and ordered a triple grande latte.

'Three grande lattes?,' replied the cretin behind the counter.

'No, a grande latte with an extra shot,' said I.

So he gave me a grande latte and a single espresso.

That is what Starbucks is like here.

But I digress. As usual.

I was in Costa and the manager, Rick, was giving the staff a thrashing for not giving out numbers when customers order food. In the US this doesn't seem to happen often - the servers remember what you look like - but in the UK they give you a number then holler it when your food is ready. The staff were trying to show US-style efficiency but Rick was not at all happy.

As soon as he turned his back there was much eye-rolling and mouthed expletives and, since my server was the cute one, I joined in with a conspiratorial eye-roll.

Fast-forward to this weekend and I am back in Costa reading the newspaper, having uneventfully negotiated my drink, when the fat one came out of the kitchen and shouted 'number 8'. I looked up as the appropriate customer made himself known and I returned to the sports section.

A minute later the routine is repeated with 'number 9', the table next to mine.

Then another minute and 'number 8'. I looked over to the previous number 8 but it wasn't him, it was someone way over the other side. Hmmm.

Next, 'number 9' - a table outside this time.

And then 'number 8' again.

At that point I left because that sort of thing can seriously mess with your head.