I’m at AWP, participating on a panel on story creation devices at the Austin Convention Center. The events spill over into the Hilton across the street, where I find myself standing in line to buy a bottle of water and a Snicker bar.
Just before I reach the front of the line, a tall, grey-templed man in a tweed jacket butts in front of me. “I’m not buying anything,” he says. “I just want to ask her a question about my latte.”
I shrug.
He pops the plastic top off his wax paper cup, pushes it toward the young woman behind the counter, and begins a tirade. “Is this what you call a latte?”
She looks at it. “Yep. That’s a latte.”
“Where’s the foam?”
She looks at it again. “It’s got milk in it.”
The man smirks. “Well, I just want to say that I know I’m in Texas, but I’m from Seattle, and in Seattle we know coffee, and lattes have foam on top.”
The young woman behind the counter lifts the latte in question and swirls it around in its cup. “You want another one?”
“Will it have foam?”
“Just milk.”
“Lattes have foam!” the guy says.
“You want something else?”
He snatches the cup. “I’m from Seattle,” he says again. “And this is not a latte!” With that, he storms off.
The girl watches him go, then turns to me. “Help you?”
I hold up my Snickers. “I just wanted to say that I’m from Mississippi, and in Mississippi, we know Snicker bars, and this is, in fact, a Snicker bar.”
At first, she stares at me, but then she bursts out laughing. “Thank you,” she says. “You and your Mississippi Snickers just made my day.”
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