Coffee in Pubs

Steve shook his head and tapped his watch.  He’d been standing at the bar waiting to be served for over 7 minutes. It wasn’t like the place was crowded or anything, there were only about 12 people in, so it really shouldn’t take that long. The problem was 3 of those 12 were drinking coffee, not just any coffee but bloody café latte which took ages to make. To top it off Johnny wanted Guinness which meant another 5 minutes standing at the bar after Steve had been served, waiting for the beer to settle and be topped up in the time honoured tradition.

‘What kept you?’’ Johnny put down his phone and picked up his beer.

‘Fucking coffee! When did a bloody pub become Starbucks?’ Steve puffed out his cheeks. ‘Who the hell drinks coffee at this time of night anyhow? Don’t they want a good night’s sleep?’

Johnny was about to answer but Steve didn’t give him a chance.

‘When I worked behind a bar if a fella ordered coffee they got what was left in the pot, we didn’t give a shit if it was sill warm, we just served it with a little plastic thing of creamer. But these days it’s all do you want skimmed or semi skimmed? Do you want a shot of vanilla? For fuzz sake, just pour a coffee and serve me my beer.’

‘It’s not…’ all about you Johnny was about to say but Steve cut him off at the pass.

‘Why do they only have one person working the bar?’ He asked indignantly. ‘It’s madness. As soon as someone orders a coffee or one of those bloody cocktails’ Steve pointed at the board advertising all manner of cocktails with titillating names, ‘ it creates a bottleneck.’

Johnny nodded, he’d given up trying to contribute.

‘And then your bloody Guinness, he spends time putting that little Shamrock in the top. Does it make it taste any better?’ The question was obviously rhetorical so Johnny let Steve answer himself. ‘No it doesn’t so why bother?’

Johnny was looking around for an escape. But he had a fresh pint so his usual escape route was blocked.

‘You know,’ Steve continued, ‘if they are going to serve coffee and tea, maybe they should make it like a café and have table service. That would mean we wouldn’t have to keep going to the bar, so we wouldn’t have this disjointed conversation.’

On the one hand Johnny thought that this  was a good idea but on the other that would mean he’d never be able to escape when Steve got into one of these moods.

‘But would the service be any better?’ Johnny asked.

‘Well maybe not but at least you wouldn’t have to stand at the bar jockeying for position.’

Johnny nodded, it was a good idea but it couldn’t see it working really.

‘Anyway where were we?’ Steve asked and Johnny breathed a sigh of relief that his friend had changed the subject.

If you like Steve I think you’ll like Mal try him - here

Clapping

Steve settled in to his seat and took a swig of his beer, it’d been a hard week and he felt the drink was well-deserved. Johnny also looked tired, the week had taken its toll on him too. Both of them sat in silence for a moment enjoying a moment to themselves.  A television played VH1 silently to the room while over in the corner the man in the hat was back again, smoking his electronic cigarette much to Steve’s ire. Steve glanced up at the TV.

‘That annoys me.’ He said shaking Johnny out of his reverie.

‘Yeah me too, why on earth do they put the TV on if they are going to pipe different music into the room, it makes no sense. Are people incapable of surviving for just a few moments without staring at a moving image.’  Johnny said hoping to nip an impending rant in the bud by completing it himself.

‘ No, not the mute TV.’ said Steve circumnavigating Johnny’s attempt to shut him up. “Although you’re right that is pretty annoying. But look closely ,if the sound was up, what would you hear.’

Johnny looked at the screen as instructed, he saw a band he half-recognised playing an unheard song.

‘I suppose I’d hear them singing,’ he said in a tone that suggested he was not entirely sure he got what his mate was getting at.

‘What else?’ Steve said.

Johnny shrugged, now he knew he didn’t know what Steve was talking about.

‘Look at the audience, what are they doing?’

Johnny looked at the TV again. The footage was taken from some old TV show with an audience and despite the TV being on mute he could see the audience were clapping along with the song.

‘They’re clapping,’ he said still none the wiser, ‘what’s the problem with that?’

‘I dunno, It’s just so.. lame.’ said Steve. ‘every bloody chat show, or the like, whenever they have a live band the bloody audience start clapping. Usually off beat, usually too loud, and always inappropriately, it really winds me up.’ Steve was getting passionate.

‘They’re just enjoying it.’ Johnny said.

‘No they are not, and that’s the point! It is not free will, don’t tell me the clapping is spontaneous, if it was, I wouldn’t mind so much, but it is ubiquitous which suggests its manufactured, started by poor some stage hand who holds up a sign. Somewhere, someone has decided that it will make better TV if the audience claps along. Well I tell you my friend, it doesn’t, it makes toe-curling cringeworthy TV.’

‘It’s not that bad Steve.’

‘Okay, it’s not that bad,’ Steve said much to Johnny’s amazement ‘but it is bloody annoying.’ he continued swooping up the glasses and heading to the bar cutting his own rant short.

Camera Phones

‘Looks like you had a good time at Luca's party on Saturday?’
‘How do you know I went to Lucas's party?’
‘The magic of the internet my friend, the magic of the internet.’ Johnny rocked back in his chair.
‘Someone mentioned me did they?’
‘Better than that mate,’ Johnny got out his phone, ‘you were tagged.’ He turned his phone so Steve could see a photo of himself gurning drunkenly into a camera.
‘Bloody hell I bet it was Julie wasn't it?’ Johnny nodded, ‘bloody Julie she was buzzing round all night with that bloody phone.’
‘She was just having fun.’ Johnny interjected trying to nip the rant in the bud.
‘Fun for her maybe, but killing the joy for the rest of us. I tell you, camera phones are the devil incarnate, no actually they are like a modern day god, the all seeing eye, omnipotent, omnipresence.
I just want to enjoy myself, live for the moment, I don’t want to be reminded continuously of my drunkenness by people who weren't even there.’

Definitive Proof

‘Oh I bought a mango today, it was lush.’ Johnny took a gulp of his pint thinking he was on safe ground with exotic fruit, but he was wrong, boy was he wrong.

‘A mango, grrrr don’t even get me started on Mangoes, if ever you needed proof that there was no god, you’ll find it there in that bastard fruit.’ Steve was turning ranting into an art form. he could turn just about any conversation topic into an irrational rant. No, thought Johnny, they weren’t irrational, sometimes they were quite logical but only a warped mind like Steve could come up with such arguments.

‘Don’t you like them?’

‘I love them and that’s the problem, I love them but I never get to eat them, they’re evil.'

'Evil?'

'Yeah I bought one on Saturday, it was hard so I waited and kept prodding it,'

'They always are.' 

'I know but Sunday morning still rock hard, Sunday afternoon no change, Monday morning rock hard, Monday lunchtime it had gone rotten. There must have been a 4 minute window when it was edible, that 4 minutes when I was on the toilet or on the phone or something. What kind of sick mind would actively invent a fruit of such deliciousness with such a small window of opportunity.’

‘But surely the fantastic juicy flesh should be proof that god exists.’

‘Ok if there is a god then I don’t want to believe in such a cruel being, something that tempts us with juicy fruits only to snatch away the pleasure. I’m not gonna worship such a sadist.’ Steve looked like he was going to explode.

‘So wars, suffering, drought. starvation and you pick mangoes as your proof?’ Johnny goaded his mate.

‘But it’s not just mangoes is it? I mean pears, avacados and and...’

'Apples,' added Johnny more for his own amusement than anything else.

‘Oh it doesn’t matter but they are all the same, unripe for days, ripe for seconds then rancid.’

‘You’re incredible,’ smiled Johnny as he took the last mouthful from his pint and went to get the next ones in hoping the next subject would bring a calmer response.