The Correct Answer
There were three customers standing in line at the coffee shop. The first customer was a guy who I recognized as another regular. The third customer was a pretty girl, who based on nothing in particular, was probably also a regular customer. I was the second customer.
The first customer ordered an iced coffee something and paid with a credit card. "There's no trivia question?" he asked. (The coffee shop sometimes posts a trivia question at the counter, a correct answer wins you a small discount.)
"Not today I guess," answered the barista.
"Think of one."
The barista made some faces while she worked the credit card machine and thought about a question. "What was Portland, Oregon almost called?"
"I don't know is it New something? New St. Louis?"
"Do you guys have an answer?" she said, looking at me and the third customer.
"I don't know." "Maybe something British."
"Boston," the barista told us.
We looked at the barista waiting for her explanation.
"There were two founders. One was from Boston. The other was from Portland, Maine," she said, giving the first customer the credit card carbons to sign. "It could have gone either way. They settled on Portland."
"So it was kind of a Denny-Yesler rivalry," I said.
The others looked at me with blank expressions.
"You know how Seattle's streets kind of go like this?" I held my hands out in front of me, my fingers simulating the angle created where the streets north of Olive Way meeting the streets south of Olive Way.
The three of them registered various levels of understanding.
"When they were laying out the streets. Yesler and Denny had their own idea about which way the streets should be layed out. And they both went forward with their plans without consulting each other."
Everybody nodded their heads, understanding.
The first customer's transaction was finished and we all shuffled around assuming our new roles. The first customer carried his coffee to a table and sat down. The barista waited to take my order. I finalized my choice of pastry. The third customer made the subtle transition from third person in line to second person in line.
"I'll have a large oolong tea and a slice of apple pie," I said.
The barista scratched her neck and pulled at her shirt collar. I looked at her with a mock look of confusion.
"I'm sorry, my neck itched," she said, placing a mug on the counter and picking a speck of goo off the rim of the mug.
"Do you want the pie heated up?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Whipped cream?"
"No, thanks," I said.
She put the pie in the microwave and went to work on the tea. I shifted my feet and played with the zipper on my backpack.
The third customer half-studied the pastries in their display case for a few seconds, then abruptly wedged herself into my line of vision and smiled. "What kind of tea is that?" she asked, fingering the tea press.
"Oolong," I answered.
"Is that a black tea?"
This is where I made my fatal error. The problem was that, my selection, oolong didn't fit firmly into the more well known categories of "black tea" and "green tea". Though it has qualities of both black and green; oolong is its own, third variety.
This all went through my head in a couple of seconds. But instead of giving a definite answer, I said "It's kind of halfway between black and green tea . . . , semi-fermented. . . " I said trailing off at the end.
Even that could have been a satisfactory answer, since it left room for further discussion, except that I had turned away and mumbled it into my shirt.
I paid with a five dollar bill; and the barista told me "Actually it's $5.18."
"Oh, I have a bunch of change too," I said.
I gave her a quarter and dropped the rest of my change in the tip jar. I selected a seat in the middle of the café with a view of the street. I removed my notebook out of my backpack and wrote this story. When the third customer completed her transaction, she walked to the window, maneuvered around the awkward beam that lays at a forty-five degree angle between the wall and the door, and sat down in the seat that I usually sit in.
If you're wondering, the correct answer was, "No. Are you a tea drinker?"