Apropos of nothing, I was horrified to realize that I spontaneously thought of the fringe folks today while driving home from the workshop I did. I was waiting at a drive-in window at a Dunkin' Donuts for an iced tea. I asked for a black unsweet iced tea (you have to say that here, you can't say unsweetened or no sugar, it has to be unsweet or they don't understand what you want).
The young man at the window looked at me and said "we don't have black tea, there is no such thing. We only have regular tea or green tea." Silly me! Says me: "but regular tea IS black tea, as opposed to green tea, which I don't want." Says the young man, "I'm sorry, but we don't have that kind of tea."
"Which kind of tea?" say I, dreading the inevitable nonsensical reply." "The black tea, there is no such thing, I'm sorry."
I take a deep breath, it's been a long day and I had very little sleep last night having to get up so early. "Ok then, I'd like a large unsweet regular tea, thank you."
"Ok," says he, and then: "unsweet?" I restrained myself from reaching up through the window and swatting him with the paper napkins on the window ledge. "Yes." I say.
Finally he brings me the tea (black, unsweetened, of course!), hands it and a straw to me, and then says "That'll be $3.09." (It included a donut, a very rare indulgence for me, but I was in traffic after all!). I hand him three dollar bills and a dime. He looks at the bills and the coin, looks at the register, looks back at the money, and says "Don't you need to give me another dollar? It's $3.09, not $3.
"I gave you $3.10, you owe me a penny, I don't owe you another dollar. May I please just have my change and the donut so I can go?"
And then... seriously, he called the manager over to ask if I needed to give him another dollar (she told him no). I asked her if he was new or in training and she said no, he'd been there a few months, was there a problem?
I said, "he can't seem to make change from what I gave him. And he doesn't seem to know your iced tea is black tea or green tea, he seems confused."
And she said (I swear this is true), we don't have black tea, we have regular tea."
I sighed, closed my window and drove off... wondering if the fringe people had taken over that Dunkin Donuts location without my knowing it.
End of saga.
