At Cafe Au Coquelet this morning, I was in a story, but I was not the main character.
As I was standing in line, the propietor (I guess he's the proprietor; I mean the fussy-looking guy with the moustache) asked me if I wanted a latte. I said yeah. At this point the proprietor whispered something to the guy who was actually working the espresso machine. Then the proprietor asked me if I wanted a double.
I rarely order doubles at Au Coquelet. The first couple of times I went there, I ordered doubles. Then I noticed I had a tendency to go hyperactive after doing so. Now I only order doubles there if I'm pretty tired.
I wasn't that tired, so I said Just a single would be fine. So I came to the head of the line, accepted my latte, and tried to hand over money to pay for said latte. The clerk wouldn't take it. He said "No." The proprietor actively refused the money. "Don't ask." He said.
So I didn't. I emerged into the sunlight with a free latte in my hands and no idea of what had just happened. I'll probably never know. I could enumerate some of my thoughts about what was going on, but they're all pure conjecture, none of them verifiable. I mean, I thought about grabbing a fire ax and forcing the proprietor to tell me what was going wrong, but he could just lie.
I'll never know what was going on. And that realization has caused me to become as frantic as any double latte could have.
I didn't go back for months afterwards.