Last week there was a lesbian couple in the cafe. One of them was dominant and she gave the other one cues to what to eat, how to order, even how to thank us for getting stuff they ordered which is kind of how the process works. People place orders, they give us money, and we give them those things.

The overly polite lesbian asked me in a strange, stitled, unnatural manner, “May I have, if it is not too much trouble, a double shot of espresso?” She looked at the dominant one and the dominant one congratulated her on her politeness prowess. Then she put some money on the counter, like a street urchin buying a candy in a movie about 18th century Britain.
They paid and I got her the espresso and then the overly polite lesbian asked, “May I have…no…I don’t want to trouble you.”

“That’s what my job is. Ask away! As long as you don’t want me to answer the meaning of life or my shoe size we’ll be okay.”

“Well…” she looked to the dominant lesbian for reassurance, “…may I have some half and half?”

“Sure. Here you go.”

“Thank you so very much. This is WONDERFUL.”

They left.

That seemed a little over the top for giving someone a bit of half and half, still in the container mind you. It’s not like I drove to a dairy and milked a cow, did whatever it is they do to make half and half and drove back to hand deliver the milky goodness in a silver carafe.

I learned later that day from someone who knows lesbian couples that some lesbian subcultures have a feature of being overly polite to the “help”, servers, cleaners, et al. That’s crazy but I’m not meant to understand much of anything related to humans. It was filed under the “odd” category and then forgotten about completley.

The next day I was shooting a movie for 10 hours and a bit mentally and physically woozy. I got a call to help a guy I know through another guy answer some technical questions regarding ProTools and movie soundtrack editing. I got my 20 pounds of equipment that might be used in the testing/teaching process out of the truck and turned around to someone WAY too close who said loudly the name of the cafe and smiled. I lept back, Kramer-like. I thought I was under attack! I could have karate chopped her. If I had ninja training that would have been one dead motherfucking lesbian.

When I reagained my fight or flight sense I realized it was the overly polite lesbian out on a run. Taking a little jog and saying hello to the help…in a really creepy way.

It sure is freaky when lesbians yell out the name of you job when you’re standing holding a bevy of video and computer equipment. For a moment, the briefest of thoughts played about my mind, that maybe she was coming to take out a bit of rage for a bad espresso. Kind of a slasher movie about coffee.

And considering how much I care about coffee, that would be understandable.

But she continued running and I answered the ProTools questions and it was all happy and carefree, the polite lesbian rampage avoided.