I yelled at a barista after a terrible day and stormed out of the coffee shop without looking back. But something about him caught my eye, something strangely familiar. I returned, and what I discovered changed everything I thought I knew about myself and my past.
You know those days when everything that could possibly go wrong just does? Well, that was exactly the kind of day I was having.
I actually woke up in a great mood, excited for an interview at a really good company. But that mood disappeared the second I walked into the kitchen.
Just my luck, I was out of coffee. On the way to the interview, my car broke down. Just stopped in the middle of the road.
I called a cab, and of course the driver took me to the wrong address. I ended up being late.
The interview itself went okay, I guess, but then I heard the classic, “We’ll be in touch.” Which always means one thing — they won’t.
The day was already a disaster. And then the hospital called. They told me my grandmother needed a new set of medications, ones that cost more than the last.
It could not have come at a worse time. I was still job hunting and barely had any savings left.
But Grandma was my only real family. My parents had left me when I was a baby, I had never even seen them.
She raised me, gave me love, and I owed her everything. I would’ve done anything for her. But I had no clue where I was supposed to get the money for her new meds.
Then fate, I guess, threw me a bone. On my way out of the interview, I passed a coffee shop and saw a sign on the window: Now Hiring. At that point, I was desperate enough to take whatever I could find.
I ordered a coffee and told the girl at the register I wanted to speak to someone about the job opening.
She told me to take a seat and said someone would come talk to me shortly.
A few minutes later, I saw a barista, a man in his fifties, walking toward me with a cup of coffee.Right as he got close to the table, he tripped and spilled the entire drink all over me.
That was it. The last straw. I lost it. I was yelling, not just at him but at the entire universe that had decided to destroy my day.
But he, unfortunately, became the face of everything that had gone wrong.
“Are you out of your mind?! I could’ve been burned!” I shouted.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to—” he began.