Lou Give Me a Milk... Chocolate!

So there's this repeat customer. A real McFly type you know what I mean, with glasses and silvery hair all matted to one side of his face. But for real, that's what I liked about him at first. He was genuinely nerdy and still had the balls to flirt with me underneath that nasally voice, with his cute little fingers holding onto his drink. I would even give him discounts every now and then just to hear his voice break when he thanked me. It was fun. Harmless even. But then one day the guy decides to give me this note and I pretty much know what it is you know, so I just put it in my apron, smile and nod and go about my business. Later, later that night when I'm counting tips and what not, I find the note and open it. And in silly ass chicken scratch it says "I like you. Date?" followed by something that resembled a phone number. He might as well have ended it with "please check one: yes or no?" Is this a side affect of med school? Incomprehensible penmanship and the complete loss of the simple human trait known as game? I mean the card was really more funny than charming. And when I got home I just threw it in a drawer and forgot about it.

After a few weeks the guy comes in again or I work again or something and we see each other. I smile and say hi. He looks down at his feet, then shoots a quick look over my shoulders and chirps a little noise that could only translate to "fuck off" and that's it. I give him his change and his drink and a side of a little "what the fuck was that about?" on the house of course. 

Its been going on like that for a while now. I tried being nice at first, its what I know. But this fool didn't let up. He just persisted on being short with me and after a while I allowed myself not to force a smile anymore and let him see that I really didn't give a shit anymore. And I thought I didn't but then I would just see him sitting there by himself sipping on his drink, maybe making mild conversation with other regulars when they'd care to indulge him. But mostly he would just sit there. It nearly broke my heart to witness it. So I thought I'd give him one more chance.

So I sit at his table with him and smirk upon eye contact. I could almost hear the "Party of Five" theme music playing behind me, so I just ask him if we could be cool. And you know what this muthafucker does? He rolls his beady, little eyes and scoffs. Maaan.

"You know what?" I cock my neck at him, "Do you think you're the first customer I haven't called? Do you think you're the last? I mean really dude, this is your time here. This is your drink you're wasting money on. I just work here. So you could either keep coming in and acting all mad because I hurt your feelings or you could laugh about this with me and actually enjoy a drink. It's your call." It didn't even feel good this time, to snap at a customer like that. Its been a while since I went berserk, and I just hoped that this time I wouldn't loose my job over it, I actually like this place. But I committed to the attitude I had just thrust upon him, "Well?"

He straightens in his chair and clears his throat. His little head stretchs forward like a baby bird hungry for regurgitated worms. He licks his lips to prepare for rebuttal and simply states, "I was only hurt that you stopped giving me discounts. Conceited."