Never Say No to Java Junkie in the A.M.

Life isn’t supposed to be complicated before 8 a.m., so I kept my request simple--or so I thought.

It was the same order I’d placed all summer without hitch or hesitation. So why should it be any different this bright Sunday morning? I’m still not quite certain.

Newspaper tucked under arm, I waited patiently in line with the eager rest at one of my favorite full-service coffee bars, basking in the aroma. Caffeine is one of the few transgressions I enthusiastically allow myself--with high regularity. Quality caffeine, that is.

Amid the tinny buzz of the coffee grinder and the gurgling whoosh of the espresso machine steaming milk, customers before me rattle off their customized requests: Short cappuccino, all foam . . . doppio espresso in tall cup, then a touch of hot water . . . double tall Red-Eye (tall cup of coffee with a double shot of espresso--sort of a caffeine speedball).

Mine, I thought would be easy by comparison.

Once at the counter, my order rolls off my lips in the blank-verse cadence of a beat poem: “Iceddoubletallnonfatcapp.” An anticipatory smile spreading, I assemble my change, to the penny.

But when I don’t hear a voice echoing my request or the cozy, busy noises announcing the preparation of my drink, the familiar chain of call-and-response suddenly snaps. It’s then that I realize there is something very wrong.

I look into the eyes of the young man behind the register. His gaze is glassy, impassive. “I’m sorry,” he begins firmly as if I’d wobbled up asking for my fourth vodka gimlet, jingling car keys in hand, “but we no longer make that drink.” Case closed.

I stand mute for a moment. A little dazed. I think maybe I spaced. Asked for the wrong thing. So I repeat the order, the question mark dangling. He shakes his head efficiently. “No.”

( No is not a word a coffee drinker processes well. And first thing in the morning? With the kind of training coffee bar employees--excuse me, barristas --get nowadays, he should know better than that.)

“But I had one yesterday at your other store,” I explain calmly, not wanting to exhibit stereotypical coffee-achiever behavior.

“Well, we’ve been handed down an edict from our headquarters stating that that drink isn’t up to our standards. . . .”

“Huh?” I shake my head. I have to admit I was a little fuzzy. I’d gone two waking hours without a hit, worked out, and I had accidentally fed a little too much money into the meter.

But all that was OK. It was Coffeetime. I was ready for a cup o’ Joseph. (That’s what I call a large coffee as opposed to small cup o’ Joe.)

He made a little sniffing sound, which brought me back for a moment. “You can have an iced something else . . . “ he offered looking at the list of possibilities on the beverage board behind him. Between the lines I read: “Surely there is something that will do.”

“Why isn’t it up to your standards any longer?” I ask, curious about how one of my favorite summer drinks, one that is as vigorously advertised as it is consumed up and down the Pacific Coast, and beyond, could, with the flick of a steamer switch, be rendered, as the British say, redundant. Or as my contemporaries would observe with a little more punch: kicked to the curb.

*

This goes beyond the “customer’s always right.” This is more about freedom to simply purchase what you like, without being on the receiving end of a haughty sniff or a not-so-subtle eye-roll.

So many things we’ve come to enjoy over decades suddenly seem to be wearing a black band emblazoned with the skull and crossbones. Or are deemed by our better-knowing servers as simply declasse. Uncouth.

I’ve heard the stories:

One friend tells about the snooty French eatery in Santa Monica that won’t bring coffee until the end of the meal--even if you can barely keep your lids at half-mast or your head threatens to list into your plate of field greens.

Another friend requests no dressing on her salad. Still, waiters want to bring everything from oil and vinegar cruets to wedges of lemons and limes wearing little mesh socks. “And why,” she wonders, “does ‘no mayo’ translate to ‘extra mustard?’ ”

Two other friends weigh-in with Italian restaurant tales: One who wanted meatballs with her spaghetti ( pasta ) and pesto sauce and was stared down by an apoplectic waiter. Another who wanted cheese on her linguine with mussels and was told by the polite but visibly horrified waitperson that, well, the cheese will dry out the fish. . . . He did diligently however, start spooning slivers of fresh Parmesan, albeit with a trembling hand.

It is one thing if you are offending the chef (my Louisiana kin, who carry pepper sauce in their pocketbooks, would cause many a California chef cardiac arrest with their rain of red “to taste”).

But to be re-educated first thing in the morning or bluntly rebuked in a roomful of your peers. No. That is unacceptable.

The problem with my beloved iced cappuccino order, according to Il Professore, was simply this: “When the ice meets the foam on an iced capp, a film forms. . . .”

And said film was no longer up to their standards.

(A frantic call to company headquarters relieved my fears. No such policy exists; they attribute his overzealousness to an attempt to “educate the customer.”)

*

This lesson on foam-causing-film lost its audience early. The teacher’s not budging and neither is the customer.

I decided to channel the strength of the last double-tall-whatever-it-was I had had 12 hours before and outsmart him. So I carefully recited my new order. This time with feeling:

“I’ll have a double tall iced nonfat latte. Easy milk. And,” and I amended sweetly, “could you top that off with a little foam please?”

The teacher behind the register stands silently, vexed. But from behind a steaming cappuccino machine, I catch the beginnings of a giggle from the barrista.

Ah yes, that long lost art--service with a smile.