TMI Barista

I work from the same coffee shop at least one day every week.  I’ve never been a “regular” anywhere before and I enjoy the familiarity of having someone know my order before I say a word.  That’s really the only familiarity I enjoy.

TMI barista was making coffee for an decidedly unattractive man, and she was flirting vigorously.  When TMI flirts, this means she’s fighting with her husband.  I was next in line and prepared myself for the tedious play-by-play I was surely about to hear about their most recent fight over a Rolls Royce (I suspect that TMI is prone to exaggeration), the novel she’s writing (purportedly a romance), or how much his parents don’t like her (that does happen from time-to-time.)

She asked how I was, I said I was ok, how about her?  She said: “Oh really, if you think you’re having a bad day, wait ’til you hear this!” …and then didn’t take a breath for 15 minutes.

She led in with a graphic description of what I believe the Bible (Mark 5:25) would refer to as an “issue of blood.”  She related the story of the “accident” she had while working at the store the previous day so loudly and with such vivid detail (yelling words such as: bleeding, clot, and placenta – Fact: yelling the word “placenta” will make every person in any room feel awkward.) that one of the several men sitting within earshot actually got pale and looked like he was terrified of catching some terrible, estrogen-related disease through his ears, or to be fair, possibly his coffee cup.  TMI segued from her blood issue by letting me know that I need not worry about it being a miscarriage (I wasn’t) because she’s had 7 of those and she knows what that is like.

Over 15 minutes she also covered the following:

• I think I scared that guy that was just in here.  But that’s good, he’s young.
• My husband just sent me to Vegas because his parents hurt my feelings.  Then he went and visited them while I was gone.  Now I’m going to make him send me away on another trip.
• My mother-in-law thinks I’m crazy .
• My mother-in-law never buys my children greeting cards.
• I’m going to start referring to friends and family that you don’t know by their first name and inform you about their lives as if you care.
• “There are a lot of people who don’t really know me that think I’m a very sane person.”
• I really enjoyed my last visit to the Ferrari dealership.
• The pros and cons of many, many, many methods of birth control.
• I find it acceptable to hold your drink hostage while I talk to you loudly and graphically about my uterus.

I like the coffee too much at this place to stop going.  I’m sure I’ll get the update from TMI next week.  In the meanwhile, I’ll work on creative ways to make myself unappealing to talk to.