Ugly American

Today I tried out this new lunch shop that I always pass on my way to school. The lady behind the counter showed extreme patience with me when I couldn't make up my mind (I was having one of those days), and seeing my backpack, she said "You a Hahnemann student? I give you 10% discount" and immediately took it off my bill. Nice doesn't cover it.

As I am waiting, a group of four men come in and sit at the stools along the counter. They were each dressed in slacks and a button-up and looked like professional computer geeks. Well, all but one. He screamed faux-yuppie, with shallow pockets and a shallow personality. On his tombstone it will read Plain Rotten. Loud, aggressive, interruptive, defensive, and RUDE are a few words that come to mind. Prime example: The nice lady is serving them their meals and without hesitation he says, "Where's my drink? I thought my meal came with a drink." She informed him that the drinks were self-serve, and pointed out that they were located at the end of the counter. He responds "Well, go down there and get it," to which she explains again that at this establishment you get your own drink. By this time he has moaned for so long that one of his co-workers got up, got his drink (his own drink, not the ugly guy's drink), sat back down, and was half way through with his onion rings.

You could feel the tension in the air and it escalated to the point where it was physically uncomfortable. The lady has a noticeable accent, and the jerk yells out in a mocking way "NO TIP! NO TIP FOR YOU!" He said it so ugly, and with such a belittling tone that I completely lost my appetite. She quickly says "this is a no tip place" and I was really hoping that she'd add "so get the hell out."

end of story: When I left he was still sitting there without his drink.