Friday, January 29, 2016

Do the right thing

I've completely given up on receiving a free coffee from Pret.

Just before Christmas I realised that they only give them out to minorities, after hearing that my ginger friend Jen got one. Well, natural brunettes with an alarming amount of white hair need coffee too.

But they are not, evidently, going to be getting it free from Pret anytime soon.

I've instead been building up the courage to offer one of the array of Big Issue sellers outside of the place, a drink.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but although most people only require for courage for one or a mixture of the following ventures:

-Saying hard things
-Tough times
-Climbing a mountain

I need to summon courage for the little things. After building up to this act for months, I finally thought, 'Here we are, today is the day!'

And so I did what any other reasonable, commuting woman would do, with charity in her heart and an occasionally acknowledged anxiety disorder, I approached him from behind.

That's right, coffee and a heart attack, I am too kind.

I then essentially yelled at his back, 'I'm just going to get myself a hot drink, would you like one?'

And he said, 'No, I've just had one thank you.'

WHICH COMPLETELY THREW ME.

I mean he might as well have spoken in Latin (that's right people, a dead language).

The thing with me is that I tend to think over, in intricate detail, a range of likely scenarios. And if someone dares to stray from the script, which they've never seen, then I am, in a word, FLUMMOXED

I said, 'Are you sure?'

He said, 'Yes, thank you though.'

I stood there for a bit, silently.

Should I have offered food? I'm not sure. It's bothering me. What if he was waiting for me to offer a ham and cheese twist, and I failed him?

Ginger has a great story, where he offered a homeless man a falafel kebab, straight out of the shop. The guy looked inside the wrapping, made a face, threw the thing in the bin and lit a cigarette.

I think it comes down this horrible feeling we have of, finally, I'm doing something good, it's a small thing, but I'm giving back, being met with, in essence, rejection.

Elation that gets smacked down.

There's nothing mean about what these two men did. It's just sometimes we can forget that they have a right, just as we do, to say no, to have preferences, to not be, as we assume, desperate for anything they can get.

Wow, that was deep. I went deep, and it felt weird.

Let's get shallow; you look pretty.

Better