Standing in line at the corporate coffee shop, waiting my turn, the barista was working ahead and asked me what I was going to order. I told him (soy chai latte, mmmmmm) which he proceeded to make for me. I still had to pay, though, and sipped it while the person ahead of me paid for their order. While I stood there, though, the barista, a tall shaved-head, goatee-sporting guy, spotted the blue wrist band I was wearing.
“Hey, that’s cool,” he said, “I had one of those, and I tried to wear it to work. But my boss said,” and here he adopted a mocking-authority voice, “‘that’s a political statement and we can’t have you wear that here, you might offend some people,’ blah, blah, blah.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I’ve run into that before.” I was thinking of the time Caleb and I were handing out flyers for our political site and ran into this particular policy in corporate-owned stores. The funniest times were when the employee, obviously sympathetic to our cause, would tell us to set them out while they looked the other way, circumventing the policy.
“Yeah,” he mused, then suddenly came to a decision. “In fact, get out of here!” He waved his grease pencil at me.
“What?” I was confused. He seemed in cahoots with me one minute, then he was tossing me out?
“Yeah, I’m buying your drink. You’re one of the good guys!” he said, beaming. “Get out of here!”
Cool. Thanks, Mr. Barista! Your bosses get to hold back some of your pay and I get to enjoy a delicious soy chai. I’m pretty sure I came out ahead but don’t think I don’t appreciate it.