Thursday, May 29, 2014

Adventure Diary of a Muslim-American Hijabi, entry #5

Original entry on April 19, 2014

I'm at one of my usual coffee shops, where all the baristas know me by name and have my orders memorized. I have the kind of relationship with baristas where going up to order coffee isn't as quick as it should be because we do things Arab style. Saying hello and goodbye is a 10 minute to three-hour affair. Even if I'm in a rush, we take some time to catch up before they ask for my order.

It's pretty empty today, which I love. When I ordered today, the barista at the cash register, as usual, didn't ask for my name. We were chatting, so I didn't notice if she actually wrote my name on the cup or not.

After going back to my seat for a few minutes, I hear:

Barista #1: "Venti, iced, soy, vanilla macchiato (yea, I felt like changing up my boring order)... for smiley-face!"
Barista #2: Smiley-face, your drink is on the bar.
Barista #3: (in a sing-song manner) Smiileeey-faace, oh Smiley! Your drink is ready.
All baristas: Smiley! Smiley! Smiley!

I am very accustomed to baristas being unable to pronounce my name, pronouncing it creatively, or just choosing not to write it on the cup instead of admitting they don't know how to spell it correctly, which is fine, as long as I get my drink.

After letting them have a bit of fun, I finally got up to retrieve my coffee.
I gave a WIDE smile, "Thank you!"
The barista that actually made my drink, "You are very welcome!"

I do tend to confuse baristas, especially when it's early in the morning, because I like going up to the counter with a huge smile on my face! Maybe I'll just start going by Smiley at coffee shops from now on.