COMMIE GIRL: OF MILK AND…HONEY, ARE YOU REALLY TELLING ME WHAT TO DO?
By Rebecca Schoenkopf
“Just keep pouring your milk!” the girl instructed me. This would be a perfectly acceptable thing for someone to tell you if you were in a cooking class, maybe, and you were learning to make a delicious flan. (Mmmm, flan!) But the girl was speaking to me at the counter of the Standard’s adooorable retro sunshine-hued diner, where she had just interrupted me receiving my coffee, because she simply could not wait her turn to berate the help. And she was speaking to me acidly.
It had started like this: As I was getting my order from the helpful Latino fellow who was very nice when I told him I’d need to buy my $3 cup of coffee with a credit card, the young lady in question stood at my elbow and said, fairly mildly, as she proffered her own cute jug, “Could I have one without a hair in it?” The man of course was embarrassed and apologetic, but not apologetic enough, because the young lady then switched her tone to one of uptight fake mirth, which I suppose is how her own mother regularly addressed the Consuelas and Diegos, and with a constricted laugh, said, “You’re really doing great this morning. First the silverware, now this!” Since she was at my elbow, I glanced her way over my shoulder, perhaps with an eyebrow raised, perhaps not. (I was not looking in a mirror, sadly, since looking in a mirror is just about my favorite thing!)
And that’s when she said it to me, her elder: “Just keep pouring your milk.”
Well, now I was delighted! Because while Miss Manners, who you wouldn’t know is my absolute hero but she is, does not condone the instruction of strangers even if they are being rude to others in your presence, she does condone a tone of sadness or an affronted “I beg your pardon!” that makes the other person understand that they are an asshole. And so I was able to say, in a mild/bemused tone, with feigned surprise and with perfect rectitude, “Are you telling me what to do now, in addition to the person who works here?” Well, did that shut her up and send her skulking back to her hairy breakfast partner?
