Customer of the week

There were other perks. You could bask in the approval of the pierced, nonbinary baristas. The people directly behind you and the people directly behind them noticed that you didn’t have to pay. For a week, you were a celebrity.

One morning, I walked into the store and took my place in line, and as I gradually moved to the front, I saw my best friend’s face on a photo stuck to the wall. He was “Customer of the Week.”

“Must be some mistake,” I thought. “Why is he ‘Customer of the Week’? What has he ever done? We come here together most of the time. They see us together, and yet, they chose a favorite?”

I’m not proud of this, but I feel I must be honest. I was not happy for my friend. Quite the contrary. I saw his face looking smugly into the camera, enjoying his free coffee, and I was really mad.

I’m not sure what it was, specifically, that was at the root of my jealousy. When my friend sauntered in a few minutes later, I tried to make a joke out of it: “Hey, ‘Customer of the Week.’ If only they knew about the bodies in your basement, ha ha ha.” It may not have been those exact words, but it was something equally lame.

But I gave the game away moments later when I suddenly barked, “I don’t get it. Why you?”

He made the right choice, the friendly choice, which was to pretend that I couldn’t actually be so childish as to envy him his “Customer of the Week” status. I’m a grown man. I’m his best friend. How could I be so petty? Impossible!

So, he pretended that I was pretending to be truly furious, that it was just a funny game I was playing. A joke. A thing.

But it wasn’t a thing.

It was the sudden realization that I am not affable. I don’t joke with the baristas or ask the cashier at the grocery store how her day is going. I don’t say, “Hey, you guys busy these days?” to the waiter when he comes by for the drink orders. I don’t fish through my pockets and say, “Wait. I think I have a dime and two pennies,” just to make it easier for whomever to make change.

I’m not rude. In fact, I’m the opposite: I’m scrupulously polite, which often comes off as unfriendly. Most of the time, I scuttle around town doing errands or going about my business and I don’t really engage in an avuncular or friendly way with the world around me.

My friend, though, is a classic “Customer of the Week.” Friendly, charming, engaging. If I was a nonbinary barista with a tongue piercing going clickety-clackety and he came in every day, I’d make him “Customer of the Week,” too. I’d ignore the other guy he comes in with, the guy who mutters and looks down and never quite seems to be there.

The week when I was not chosen as “Customer of the Week,” I did a lot of thinking about who I am and what my expectations are for myself and the people around me. To use a phrase I’ve heard on the way into yoga class, I thought a lot about the “energy I was putting out there.” And I made a small resolution to try to be more like a “Customer of the Week” in every way.

Which lasted about a week. Being affable is exhausting, and I would find myself drained and ready for a nap after a couple of minutes of friendly banter. And also: I prefer paying for my coffee. I like the antiseptic and transactional quality of the exchange. In fact, I’d like to up the antiseptic and transactional quality of my life in general.

I learned to accept that the “energy I’m putting out there” is, “I would like to pay you money for goods and/or services, and I would like to leave it at that.”

In other words, I am a customer, not a “Customer of the Week,” which is good enough for me and should be good enough for the person who makes my coffee.

Rob Long is a television writer and producer and the co-founder of Ricochet.com.