Asshole

“Uh – sir, you can’t smoke that in here.” A pimply waiter approaches me timidly wearing a green apron and balancing a tray full of mochas precariously by his ear.1

Slowly, I raise my head and fix him with a stare that clearly challenges, “What are you going to do about it?”2

“Sir,” he tries again, gulping this time. “This is a smoke-free environment. I’m going to ask you to put out your cigarette or you’ll have to leave.”3

I point my middle finger down at the tiny circular table I’m sitting at. “This is an establishment provided for the consumer by a corporation of snobby-ass, too-rich-for-their-own-good, never satisfied, Chinese children exploiters. These corporation owners, who have never worked a day of real hard labor in their whole goddamn lives, have provided this coffee shop to meet the needs of the common man who works his ass off all day and then stops here before he comes home so he has the energy to go home and make love to his wife who’s spent all day mothering our next generation of nobodies. Because he gives me what I want, I give him my well-earned paycheck and we’re both happy. Now,” I say, shifting in my chair so that I can stare the nervous kid in the eyes, “the same corporation decides that they’re not happy enough with just the part of my paycheck that goes into coffee so they want the other half of my paycheck that goes into cigarettes too. So, there goes my paycheck. I have my cigarettes, I have my coffee. In a sense, I’ve given everything I own to these rich bastards just for a few measly minutes of a false sense of relief. In a sense, I sold my soul to this establishment. This establishment is mine, I paid for it. So, this corporation, who’s taken everything from me; now he’s going to tell me that I can’t smoke his cigarettes in a place I paid for?”4

I furrow my brow and swipe my hand through the air to make my point.5

After a silence, the kid waiter’s Adams apple bobbed and he clears his throat. “Um, sir, I’m asthmatic.”6

I look at him incredulously then I laugh a big, “HA!” Still chuckling, I crush my cigarette in what remains in the bottom of my coffee mug. “I like you, kid,” I say.7

He chuckles feebly and carries away my cup while I titter behind my hands until I settle down.8

I love how people are so scared of confrontation. I make my life off of shit like this.9