Chapter Ten #2
I ambled into the busy shop and inhaled the scent of cocoa and coffee beans.
Round tables in green and blue were packed with people enjoying some coffee or tea while out shopping.
Many were coming back from the mall on the other side of the New York/Pennsylvania border, I wagered.
Gilda was standing by the counter deep in conversation with some young man, twirling her loose hair around a finger, and giggling madly.
I’d not met the boy before, but I’d heard lots of tittle-tattle about Mr. Tim Brittans, he of the blue eyes, blond hair, and killer smile.
So I assumed this was the man of the year.
Tim was making eyes at Gilda instead of working, so I swaggered up to the counter and cleared my throat.
Both young people startled. Gilda turned red, and Tim, if that was this heartbreaker’s name, flushed a nice shade of purple.
“Dad, seriously, can you not be so obtuse?” Gilda huffed. Obtuse? How was walking up to a counter considered unable to grasp a simple concept? Did people not order at the register nowadays? Oh, probably not. Probably there was some app. Oh well, tough tangerines.
“Sorry, I just wanted to order some hot cocoa for myself and my daughter,” I replied and gave the young man a stern look that sent him skedaddling to make some hot chocolate as my daughter fumed. “What?”
She rolled her eyes. “Dad, no one just stalks up to the counter. You order from the app, and then they bring you your stuff. It’s like so old to just expect someone to make your stuff before other people’s orders are done.”
“I didn’t know. Where is the menu?” She gave me that DOH look. “Sure, on the app. But what if I don’t have the app on my phone and wish to see what they have here?”
She pointed at a QR-code pasted on the front of the register.
“Seriously? They don’t have paper menus?
” I glanced around to find at the very least a sign with their menu items, but nope, nothing but QR-codes glued to every table as well as the register.
“Can I just say how very much I dislike this whole ‘scan the code to find what you can order’ craze? Digital menus are annoying when you’re trying to compare.
They don’t work properly half the time, and I rather like telling a human being my order. ”
“Dad, you’re such a dinosaur,” Gilda whispered, shamed to the teeth, before she stomped off to find a table. I stood there like a dunce until Tim brought me my two hot chocolates. He rang me up and pointed at the card reader without saying a word.
“Would you like anything else, sir? Why I don’t know, Timmy, if you are Timmy, since I can’t seem to see a menu unless I have my phone out, which I don’t at the moment, so perhaps you could toss a couple of those cinnamon muffins on our tray as well?” I deadpanned.
The kid seemed confused by my sarcasm, but he did load me up with two fat muffins before adding them to the bill and pointing at the card reader again. I scanned my debit card and got a look of confusion when I didn’t leave.
“You’re supposed to say thank you for coming to our store. Hope to see you again.”
Timmy blinked, mumbled something, and gazed vacantly at me.
I bit back something unkind about the fate of the world and customer service and made my way to the little table in the corner, sat down, and handed Gilda her cocoa and muffin.
“Did you say anything old to Tim?” she asked before I even sat down properly.
“Old? What exactly is saying something old?” I asked because I wasn’t sure if I had or not but assumed I probably did.
“Like complaining about QR-codes or paper menus, which are a waste of trees, or droning on about customer satisfaction. You know, old stuff.”
I tore my muffin in half. “I might have said those things, yes.” She groaned in utter teen agony. Well, preteen. For another nine days. “And trees are a renewable resource so printing menus will not wipe out a forest as foresters will just plant new trees.”
“Did you really say something about customer service?” I nodded as I popped a chunk of sweet, moist muffin into my mouth.
“Dad, honestly, why would you even? Tim is doing what the owners tell him to do. Keep interaction with customers to a minimum since it slows things down. He’s super busy and can’t just stand around and talk to people. ”
That made me snicker. She glanced up from peeling the muffin paper from her treat.
“Sorry, it’s just that back in my day, when the cavemen were hunting mammoths, the people who cooked your mammoth meat at the mammoth drive-in always took time to talk to you.”
“You’re being dumb.”
“Yabba dabba doo,” I mumbled and chuckled at her blank stare.
“There used to be a cartoon about cavemen, and they rolled up to a drive-in and…” She looked bored stiff.
“It’s not important. I’ll try not to be so utterly geriatric the next time we go to a restaurant with no menus.
I’ll just make wild guesses about what they have.
Yes, I’d like a brontosaurus burger with a side of pterodactyl fries, please, extra ketchup.
Oh, you don’t have those? How about a stegosaurus steak with a fat baked pill beetle with sour cream? ”
“You are so bizarre.” She tried to hide a smile behind her muffin, but I caught the twitch at the corner of her mouth. My stomach rumbled, so I dove into the muffin with gusto. “You can come up for air, Dad.”
“I’m hungry.” I did love soup and bread, don’t get me wrong, but they wore off quickly, it seemed.
Plus, it was way past six and dinner was going to be either something frozen or a pizza ordered in when we got home.
Heck, maybe we could just do baked goods for the evening meal.
I was not being a good parent with these kinds of nutritional choices.
“Why did you not eat lunch again?” The quarter of a muffin I was going to cram into my face froze an inch from my crumby lips. She plucked off a tiny bit of her muffin. “I mean, you’ve brought back your sandwiches two days in a row. If you’re hungry, why are you not eating?”
Shit. She was far too observant. “I was busy at work. I planned to eat them as a snack before bed.”
“Tuna and cheese before bed? Gross.” She turned to gaze at Timmy behind the counter, ignoring customers. Guess it wasn’t just me.
Everyone got the cold shoulder. Seemed I was really getting old if that kind of new and modern thing knotted my knickers. QR-codes. Please. “I’m going to order us some bagel sandwiches for dinner.”
“Okay.” She pulled out her phone, scanned the damn QR-code glued to the table, and began typing in our order. “Ten minutes.”
“Cool beans.”
“Dad, really? The only people who say that are like Franny’s age.”
“Would you like me to say something is lit or that Tim kid has rizz?”
A look of sheer horror mixed with disgust took over her face.
She then set into explaining why I was far too elderly to say such things, which took her mind off my soggy sandwiches in the fridge.
I’d eat them later or toss them out into the yard for the crows in the morning.
At least her mind was onto something else for the time being.
I may be a crotchety old dad, but I was a clever, crotchety old dad.