Life’s little provable victories

Where I was, at that moment, was enjoying a chicken salad sandwich and doing the crossword, which is how I prefer to spend my lunch hour. When I finally looked up from 3 Down (“Like jigsaw puzzle pieces produced by machines.” Answer: “Diecut”) I looked at my phone to see those messages, plus a few more with increasingly hostile and furious overtones.

I didn’t blame them for being angry, of course. It was incredibly rude of me not to show up. Or it would have been, had I known the lunch was scheduled for Tuesday instead of when I thought it was scheduled, which was next Thursday.

The reason I thought it was set for a week from now, instead of yesterday, is that the person organizing the lunch sent me an email saying, “We’re CONFIRMED for lunch at 1:30PM on 7/21.”

I had, as the young people say, the “receipts.” But I waited a bit for a few more aggrieved and irritated messages to roll in — “Really disappointed you blew us off” and “Not sure when we can reschedule, sorry” — before I dropped the hammer.

I sent a screenshot of the confirmation email to both of them with what I consider to be the finest example of passive-aggressive language in history. “Here’s what I have re: lunch,” I texted. And then I added: “Did I misunderstand?”

Boom.

It’s rare, for me, to have such a clear and resounding win. Often, to be honest, I did just space out and forget the lunch date. I’m usually the one who misses the email or gets the time wrong. But this was that elusive and unexpected opportunity to bask in righteousness, with a little disingenuous kicker. “Did I misunderstand?” I asked, knowing that I did not, knowing that they now knew I did not, knowing that the guilty party would now have to swallow all of that prickly indignation and apologize.

Not bad for a Tuesday afternoon.

It doesn’t always work that way. I once went to a local coffee shop and ordered a large coffee with room at the top for milk. Those are pretty much the words I used: “Tall coffee, room at the top,” and the surly girl at the counter, wearing all sorts of odd piercings and tattoos, nodded.

But when she put my coffee on the counter, what I got was a tall coffee with no room at the top. So I went over to the little stand near the counter where they keep the coffee additives, and I poured a little of the coffee out into the trash slot. I splashed some milk into the coffee cup and was halfway done when the girl behind the counter called out to me.

“Sir?” she said, voice pitched in irritation. “Um, we’d prefer it if you didn’t pour coffee in the trash? If you want room at the top for milk, just tell us you want room at the top? OK?”

That’s how she talked — every sentence ended with an upward inflection, sort of like how people talk to children or particularly slow adults to make sure they’re listening and taking in the lesson.

Instead of responding, for some reason I sort of stared, frozen, into space. This was when a much more emotionally together customer barked out, “He did tell you to leave room for milk. I heard him. You weren’t paying attention.”

Things got very quiet in the coffee shop. The girl behind the counter looked at me, then at the other customer, then back at me again, and I prepared myself for an apology.

Instead, she turned to the next person in line. “Can I help you?”

The guy who chimed in got his coffee and sailed out of the shop happily. He had expressed himself and was now fully satisfied. I hadn’t, and now I was still there, with all sorts of unresolved issues.

I was just a guy with a full cup of coffee blocking everyone’s access to the cream and sugar. I was a guy who had missed his moment for one of life’s little pleasures.

Lesson learned. When you’re entitled to a little moment of righteous triumph, make sure you take it. Always ask “Did I misunderstand?” when you know for certain that you did not.

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