Buy Or Don’t Buy

Sally sized up the mid-morning crowd at Starbucks and approached a gray-haired man at the butt end of the line. He seemed to be scaling the two varieties of yogurt and granola, one peach and raspberry, the other strawberry and banana, with his hands, as if determining which weighed more. “Sir,” she said, tapping him on the shoulder. “Sir. Did you know that for the price of a daily cup of coffee, you could feed one starving child in Africa a day?”

“Sorry, can’t help.”

She nodded and inched upward. The Elephant Man stood next in line, trying to make eye contact with a barista and keep his teetering to a minimum. Any sudden movement forward or backward would topple his tumor-ridden head to the floor. “Excuse me, sir. Did you know that you can feed one starving child in Africa a day for the price of a cup of coffee?”

The Elephant Man paused before cocking his head towards Sally’s jarring poke. “I think I’ve heard that. Only shouldn’t it be ‘for the price of your second cup’?” Though all Sally could hear, as well as the rest of the coffee shop, was AIIEEE EWWAHHH.

Sally frowned and tapped a woman. “For the price of your second cup of coffee, you can feed a starving African child.”

“Sorry?”

Sally moved to the top of the line. “I’m at the top of the line,” Sally said, an ecstatic smile taking over her face. She ordered an eggnog latte and stuck the change from her ten in her back pocket to donate later. She turned to hug the woman who still looked confused behind her. “I worship the trees,” she whispered into the woman’s ear.

A suspicious barista restarted the linksys hidden below a register. The wi-fi kicked back in and knocked Sally to her knees. She crawled out the door, leaving her eggnog latte unmade.