Mr. Creepy

So it turns out it's 2 for 1 day here on Jessie! Enjoy.

This morning as I was walking into work I decided to allow myself a breakfast sandwich from Dunkin' Donuts. Generally speaking I start my day by eating a mutligrain bagel with butter (mmm, birdseed in your bread, delicious...). However, this morning I ordered a ham, egg and cheese breakfast sandwich on a croissant to change it up a little (aren't you glad to have all these food stories today? Yea, you're welcome).

The first thing you need to know (in case you've never been to Boston) is that Dunkin' Donuts is like a religion out here. It was started in Massachusetts and you can find one approximately every 50 feet on the street. Well, maybe not 50 feet, but you can definitely always find one within a one-block radius of wherever you're standing. And they're always packed. For example, there is a cop stationed at the Dunkin' Donuts on the way out of my town every morning to direct traffic because it's the last one for awhile and people can't handle the possibility of getting into the tunnel without their coffee so someone needs to be there directing people out of the drive thru lane. I'm completely serious.

The second thing you need to know is the DD in my building is a marvel of inefficiency. The setup is not what I would call functional, helpful or ideal. It really can't be described in any kind of positive language. It's a tiny little place where you stand behind a little rope barricade thing to form a line and wait for someone to yell "next!" The problem with this is that there is one person at each cash egister and another person helping the cashier by making the coffee. Now let's say you have someone who doesn't order coffee (like me and surprisingly I am not the only person in Boston who doesn't drink coffee, despite what you may have heard), the helper person will just yell for the next person in line, but you still have to wait for the cashier to be ready for you, and this creates a sub-line. Meanwhile, other people are trying to get to the other cashiers, so you could have up to four lines in there at once. And just in case you didn't catch it the first time, this place is TINY. It's basically a mini hallway about 5 feet across. Not really enough room for the 12,000 people trying to get their coffee/breakfast in the morning. Oh, and if you order something that needs to be toasted (like a bagel or a breakfast sandwich)? You crowd around the door people are trying to walk in and out of to wait for your food to be ready. Really, it's brilliant.

Anyway, I placed my order, paid for my stuff, got down to the food pickup area and was standing patiently waiting for my order to be called. When the guy called "ham-egg-cheese on croissant!" I raised my hand and said, "right here!" (which is standard operating procedure when there are that many people standing around waiting for their food) at which he stopped, put the bag down at his side and stared at me. Stared straight into my eyes. I wasn't sure what was going on so I gave him a "thank you for my breakfast sandwhich, kind sir" smile and sort of inched my hand forward to grab my bag. He did not make a move to hand it to me, he just kept right on staring. It was a weird stare, too. One that contained what I perceived to be disapproval or malice (or like I was a ghost or something). At this point I started looking around to see if there was someone behind me because I really couldn't figure out what the deal was, but he was definitely looking at me. He never said anything, just kept staring. This went on for a full 60 seconds before he finally handed me my bag and I ran away.

When I got to my office I pulled out my mirror to make sure I didn't have anything on my face or that my bangs hadn't slipped to form some sort of obscene symbol or something (I didn't and they hadn't). I'm not sure what it was that was so offensive about me today, but it sure must have been something. I might have to stop going into that particular Dunkin' Donuts if Creepy McStaresatyou is going to be there. Which is ok, there's another one on the corner. :)