Yesterday afternoon, the unthinkable happened: my linux workstation locked up. Not only did it lock up, but my graphics card came crashing down in ruins. I must admit that I should take some blame for this myself, as I had tried to patch the kernel to install graphics drivers for my nVidia card a day earlier, and something tells me the two were related. As having a working workstation at work (how poetic!) is extremely important, I knew that I needed to replace my video card toot-sweet, as Truly Scrumptious would say.Fry's, the huge (and rather crappy) electronics super-store is about 1 minute away from my workplace. So, I grabbed Chuck the Eater by the collar and told him were going to Fry's for a meeting, a video card, and a cup of joe -- all, frankly, quite true.
Once at Fry's we found the video card section and I started combing for something appropriate for a linux box. I selected an ATI Radeon 9200 for $79. It even had "linux" as a supported operating system listed on the box. Box in hand, we went to the coffee shop in the center of the store to have our meeting and get some coffee. There were two employees there -- an older woman in a green smock behind the counter and a younger woman near the cash register in the middle of the shop. Neither of them were within 10 feet of the gigantic "Order Here" sign with an arrow pointing at an empty counter. Minion-like, I stood were I was silently commanded to and waited for one of them to take my order.
The girl at the cash register blinked and smiled doe-like at me. The woman behind the counter fiddled with the espresso machine. After a minute or so, the older woman croaked at me, "She [the younger woman] can take your order."
I nodded and approached the younger woman at the cash register.
"I'd like an espresso and a poppyseed muffin, please."
She blinked. "A poppy...seed...um...muffin...ok..." Fumbling, she rang up a muffin. "What else did you want?"
"And an espresso."
"Um, ok." The young girl looked at her cash register, then back at me. She picked up a laminated piece of paper covered with barcodes, flips it over once or twice, scanning for espresso, I presumed.
"What did you want again?" she asked, putting the sheet down.
"I'd like an espresso and a poppyseed muffin." I repeated.
Pain crossed the pretty doe-eyed girl's face. A slightly older man, also a Fry's employee, came over and started chatting with her going to see Batman Begins. She turned away from me to acknowledge him. After a few moments of chit-chat, she seemed to remember that I was a customer and turned back to me.
"I'm sorry, what did you want?"
"An espresso and a poppyseed muffin, please." I repeated. Again.
The pained look returned. She glanced at the beau. He shrugged and looked at me, trying to force a polite smile.
Finally, she said, "What's that?"
Had my eyes had legs they would have jumped from their orbits. I was standing in a coffee shop. Behind me, a woman was cleaning an espresso machine. Above her, a gigantic, clearly legible menu began with the word espresso, just above cappucino and latte.
"It's an espresso." I said tersely, reveling in the tautology.
The young doe-eyed girl called across the shop to the older woman. "Can you help me, please" The older woman sighed heavily, as she must now stop adjusting the espresso machine and come help this girl who I surmized was the village idiot of Fry's Electronics. The woman stomped over, a flabby cigarette dangling from her lips even though she had no cigarette dangling from her lips.
"Yeah? What?" she growled at me.
"I'd like an espresso and a poppyseed muffin." I repeated. Again.
The older woman pressed a button and the register rang up an espresso. She marched back behind the counter and began to pull one while I paid the girl. I turned, walked over the counter, and the older woman presented me with a large styrofoam cup containing a thimble of hot black sludge.
"Anything else?" she croaked.
"And a poppyseed muffin."
"You want that heated?"
"Please."
She plodded over to the muffin case, selected a muffin, flung it into the microwave for a few seconds, and then gave it to me. Muffin and espresso in hand, I sat down with Chuck to try to enjoy them.
I lifted the cup to my lips and took a sip. My face contorted in pain.
"Too hot?" inquired Chuck kindly.
"No! It's awful!" I sputtered. "That's the worse espresso I've ever had in my life. It's like she just scraped up some tar off the blacktop outside and mixed in some stagnant water." I hand ed the cup to Chuck. "Here. Try it."
That -- offering some foodstuff just stated as terrible to a dining companion -- is an interesting phenomenon. It is obviously instinctual. It must be something like Great Thundering Monkey God! This thing I have just tasted is really bad! It must be poisonous. Yet, I have survived and can help my tribe with this hard-won knowledge. Here, member of my tribe, taste it, too, so that you will know it is bad and not eat of it again, if you do not die tasting it.
Chuck, having evolved slightly further than myself, sniffed it and refused. I took a few more sips to confirm that this was indeed the worst espresso on the planet, then turned my attention to sharing the muffin and talking shop with Chuck. We solved the problem (a work-related problem involving how to script around bad software), left the shop, paid for the video card, and returned to work.
The espresso hung around though, having tarred my tastebuds thoroughly, and hours later at dinner it required the better part of a liter of San Pelligrino to finally wash it away.
More Fun at Fry's can by found at the following sites:
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