Haaseltons just lost a customer forever. I will never again set foot inside that place for the rest of my days, which is saying something, as I’ve been a loyal customer for over a decade. I’m aware the place had been getting dingy in recent years, and they’d instituted a strange, petrol-station-like policy of making you request a bathroom key on a stick before using the loo, but the place had nostalgia for me, and I really like their chai lattes.
That Asian guy, who I can only assume is either the manager or the owner, pissed me off big-time today.
I was attending the weekly NaNoWriMo write-in and went to Natas by mistake: the write-in was being held at Haaseltons. I didn’t realize I was in the wrong place until after I’d ordered something to eat, sat down and checked the NaNo site on my cell phone. So I gulped my chai and asked for my cake to go and then dodged up to Haaseltons. I was promptly informed by the owner that I was not welcome to eat my Natas dessert in his establishment. I told him I understood, but that I’d gone to the wrong place by mistake, blah, blah, and that if I could (please and thank you) eat my one little piece of cake I’d be in Haaseltons for at least the next two hours during which not only would I be buying multiple drinks and another dessert, about a half dozen of my acquaintances would be showing up to do the same.
Dude didn’t believe me — all but called me a liar by saying that he’d heard my “story” many times before (from students, I can only assume). He said absolutely no way would he let me eat any food I didn’t buy there. How he intended to stop me, I’m not sure, but I didn’t feel like pressing the point in the face of his obvious hostility. In summary — I was told to get out. Now, I’m a 40-year-old employed professional and bear as much resemblance to a cash-strapped student as Tipper Gore does to Summer Glau. Hell, I could afford to buy everyone in the joint a free coffee (at Natas) out of petty cash — which I was momentarily tempted to do in an extreme act of comeuppance, but I didn’t because when I’m that mad my oratory skills abandon me and I clam up.
(Note: For me to regain my eloquence you have to push me beyond mad and into homicidal, at which point you will find me belting out scathing iambic pentameter whilst simultaneously bludgeoning the object of my wrath to death with the nearest handy blunt instrument.)
Anyway, I don’t like being called a liar, not one little bit, and especially not by some self-righteous fucktard who’s at least my age and should know better than to break the Prime Directive of the service industry — namely, that the customer is always right.
So now I’m pissed and will *never* set foot in Haaseltons again.
Ever.
So fuck Haaseltons. I’ll be spending my money at Natas and Dreams of Beans from now on, where the floors are cleaner, the bathroom isn’t locked, where there’s nice art on the walls, and where the staff know when to shut the fuck up and be polite.