Type A tax
: You think it’s easy being a Type A? Well, it’s not.
So this morning, I was driving my kid to school with a project too big for the bus (in their minds, kids have standards for carry-on baggage stricter than the airlines’) and I needed (well, “needed” is pushing it) to go to Starbucks to get my coffee and who-know-how-old scone.
My kids hate it when I go to Starbucks (and my wife eggs them on) and so it’s my fault when they’re slow.
I run in this morning with not a minute to spare and, damn, I see a slow guy on the register. The slow guys are all the same: They have the look of “retired” corporate vice-presidents. Post Peter Principle. These are guys who had secretaries to run their lives for years and now they can’t chew gum and run a register at the same time.
I’m crazed. And it doesn’t help that everybody in front of me is putting in orders harder to make than weapons of mass destruction. It also doesn’t help that they ran out of coffee. Hey, fools, it’s Starbucks! It’s your whole job: making coffee. How can you run out?
Drip. Drip. Drip. Crazed. I’m crazed.
I have my money in my hands. I know how much the coffee and scone and Times costs: $4.66. I get my coffee in hand and shove the money at the VP of slow and dash out, figuring that I’d just tipped him 34 cents for slow service.
I get my kid to school on time. Life is fine.
And then, a mile later, in traffic — crazed again — I realize: I didn’t hand him $5. I handed him $10. I gave the Slowman a $5.34 tip for being slow.
Now I’m really crazed.
You’ll be glad to know that I drink decaf.
