all right, baby

We have this really cool, old black guy that comes in all the time during the night. He's always driving a different car and he likes to call me, "baby." It's always, "Can I get large coffee with one and one half cream and two sugars, baby." And I always say, "you got it, man," because I like the guy. When other people try to order in halves I get pissed, but not with this guy. He's too smooth for me to hate. (Oh, if you are wondering how I do the one and one half cream, I'll tell ya: We have a cream dispenser and I just hit the large cream button once, and then over to the small one, one time - easy enough.)

Last night he - let's call him Smooth Operator - came in around 10:30 p.m. and got his regular order. Smooth Operator was driving a nice Ford Mustang, but the window didn't roll down, so he had to open the door to make the exchange, but he was cool about it. Usually, other customers that have screwed-up windows explain to me some lame excuse like they have been meaning to get it fixed, or their brother messed up the window. Not Smooth Operator though, he just opened up the door with no explanation. Smooth Operator knows that I don't need any explanation, so he didn't waste my time with it - cool.

Well, around 4:30 a.m. I hear through my headset - "You made that last cup of coffee so good, baby, that I just need another one. One and one half cream with two sugars, baby," said Smooth Operator. "Just like last time."

Smooth Operator pulled up in some junky old brown car and as I was handing him his coffee he asked me, "Why doesn't the coffee taste as good when the girls' make it for me? How you do you make such a good cup?"

"Well, I'll tell ya," I said. "These girls that work here don't drink coffee, so they have no idea about freshness. I do, baby."

"I like it, baby," said Smooth Operator as he handed me a dollar tip.