The commerical airport we use here in Bend, Oregon is actually in Redmond, Oregon.
Flights from here generally depart very early. It think it’s because they need to make it to bigger airports to make connections to further-away places.
Flight typically depart at 4:30-6:30 AM. They want your bags an hour before departure, and the airport is 30 min from Bend, so you gotta be out the door sometimes at 3:00 AM meaning ungodly 2:30 AM alarm clocks.
That’s the extreme case though. If you aren’t checking a bag and you’ve got a 6:00 AM flight, maybe you’re leaving the house at a spicy but tolerable 4:45 AM.
That was too much preamble for this, but now you know.
The one giftshop/coffeeshop in the airport opens at 4:00 AM. One person opens it up and starts selling things to the couple hundred people milling around in the one terminal preboarding area.
This shop sells all the normal stuff you see in airport giftshops like cheezy Central Oregon sweatshirts and magnets, cold beverages and string cheese, magazines, and the like.
They are also, and perhaps mainly, a coffeeshop.
People stand in line to buy coffee. It’s early in the morning. You can’t bring in liquids. It’s damn coffee time.
Right in the heat of the morning airport action, there might be 20-30 people in line. It’s a whole thing.
Now we’ve arrived at my point.
What do you order from this one person working at this coffeeshop at 4:00 AM?
You can’t help but be aware there are 20 people behind you in line and how there is one person taking orders and making the coffee drinks. Right?!
You could order a latte, which will take like 3 minutes to make. Or you could order a drip coffee in which this person hands you a cup in 3 seconds.
My brain is built such that I cannot possibly order something that will take this person a while to make. Like the words would be unable to come out of my mouth. Even if a cortado sounds really good right now, actually, I can’t do it. I can make an active choice to get a perfectly fine drip coffee and get this line moving and get all these strangers-yet-neighbors their coffees too, or I can cause a big ol’ hitch in the giddyup.
I hope I’m not trying to grandstand how perfect I am. I’m showcasing one part of how my brain works. I really don’t like inconvinencing other people.
I notice, because it seems like plenty of other people don’t.
People order cappaccinos and flat whites and all that shit without abandon.
The line takes forever. It just is what it is.
And we come to why I titled this The Rude Trifecta. These mocha-ordering fellow humans must fall into one of these categories:
- They don’t know that it’s rude
- They don’t care that it’s rude
- They disagree that it’s rude
I actually don’t know how it would break down if there was a way to figure it out, but I suspect it’s a fairly even mixture.
Like for some, it just doesn’t cross their mind that it’s any problem at all to order a 3 minute drink. It’s a coffeeshop and they ordered a coffee. Maybe if they thought about it for far too long like myself, they could see the problem, but that’s not their normal thinking pattern.
For others, they couldn’t give any less fucks. Again it’s a coffeeshop and they ordered a coffee. They stood in line like everyone else. Yeah, it might take a while, but it’s their turn and they are going to use it. Put whip cream on it motherfucker.
The last one is very similar to the above, but it’s more intellectual. Again it’s a coffeeshop and they ordered a coffee. This is not a rude action. It’s not on them to dechiper what is and isn’t rude on a menu, or to personally shoulder a understaffing issue. They might go so far as to think it’s actually rude in the other direction, where self-censoring an order doesn’t give the business the appropriate feedback on their operations.
That’s why if I was with a friend and they did it, I’d be totally fine with it. I can’t do it. I can’t ask them to get me the americano. But their actions are their own and this isn’t a situation where I cast any judgement. I mean assuming it’s #3 and not #2, that is.
Speaking of airports and flying, this is why I literally cannot recline my seat if someone is behind me. It takes up their room. Can’t do it.
Reminds me of a recent-ish Marcel post:
I feel like the neighbor:
- doesn’t know it’s rude
- doesn’t care it’s rude
- disagress that it’s rude