Today I was on the customer side of a coffee bar with which I am well acquinted when a man received his macchiatio.

He said "yeah.... that was to go."

The man behind the bar said "I can put it in a paper cup for you, but we usually serve them for here because it is such a small drink"

I asked the man "Do you like macchiatos?"

He shrugged and said "yes."

I suggested "You might want to try it for here since there is a significant difference in texture, temperature, and flavor."

"Yeah, I'm meeting friends," he said while pouring the macchiato into the paper cup and then leaned in to add "I've had a macchiato for here before." This latter bit was added with a condescending head nod and hand patting on my shoulder.

He then walked out without time to remark that he had assuredly been rude to others before as well.


I stood for a minute of disbelief of the state of humanity, american etiquette, and a bit of despair about the seemingly helpless situation in which I had found myself.

I realized that I couldn't just drop this one. I had to let this man know that his actions we not permissible. This seemed to be impossible. First of all, he was gone from the cafe in which I was standing. Secondly, he was surely the type not to listen to a fellow like me about etiquette. What could I do to get this man to think about his future actions?

I walked outside and saw him standing a half block down waiting for his friends. After a little while his friends joined him and he progressed further down the block.

I ran back inside. I quickly grabbed a blank sheet of paper wrote in sharpee "Your condescending tone and patronizing body language makes you seem a little rude an arrogant." I folded the paper thrice and pushed it happily into the blank envelope and licked it sealed.
I smirked with delight as I walked out to my somewhat trusty BMX and rode merrily down the street and passed this fellow without him noticing. I then saw a friend of mine.

She is adorable. Cute 24 year old creative bohemian. A smile that could charm a snake. I asked her to deliver the letter to the man who was behind me on the sidewalk in shorts an little awkward socks. She said "sure", without asking what the contents were. She took the letter and I promptly rode off in a direction in which the man could not see me.

The result was that this man was a block later handed a letter regarding his actions by a seemingly unrelated individual.

He was upset. He came back to my friend and foisted the letter upon her bike basket. She told him that she didn't know what letter said, and asked "wouldn't you like to keep it?". Still upset over it he called me some names and asked her to relay the message to me that I should talk to him about it to his face. Let me assure you that I would happily say these things to the mans face, while remaining calm and as polite as one may seem while calling someone condescending. My intent in giving him a letter through a mediator was in order to make it a memorable experience for the man. He wound up not giving the letter back to my friend.

As I presume that it will take much more than a letter to change that sort of man I imagine that he is still fuming about the whole thing. Maybe later he will go home and blog about it, or write a nasty review of the coffee shop, or tell all of his friends, or maybe there is the small possibility that I succeeded and that he might for a moment question the effect of his tonality on others.

Probably not, but I still feel like the champion.


PS- Sorry I don't have any other documentation. I'm really sorry that I don't have a reaction of the man. It all happened so fast that I had no way of documenting it. Sort of an impulsive one.