I went to Mr. Crepe on Davis Square yesterday morning.  It was a little before nine, and the place was deserted.  I was surprised to see that it opens at 7:30 on Saturdays.  If the little ticket they give you with your order number on it is any indication I was only the second customer of the day.  And the girl at the counter was none too happy about it. 

I know how it is.  You're in The Zone, and customers are a distraction.  Plus, the first thing I said when I walked in the door was, "are you guys open?"  Which is an annoying question when obviously they are.  She sneered without looking up and reluctantly confirmed that they were. 

To be honest, I have never had much luck with the help there.  There's a young guy who I get the feeling thinks everyone is hitting on him, whom I have learned not to make eye contact with when ordering.  He's not even that cute. 

But the truth is, no human kindness escapes any of them.  At least not towards me.  And they have trained me not to attempt to show any myself by answering my innocent smiles with glares, or by returning my "good morning" with a brittle "can I take your order?" 

Whenever I complain about the service somewhere in my blog, I always get a comment from someone who says something like, "they shower me with flowers and serenade me at my table whenever I go in there."  Complain about the T, and, especially if Adam picks up the post over at Universal Hub, it's guaranteed someone will write to tell me, "it's always on time for me, the one time I took it, and, by the way their service is exemplary."  They often go so far as to imply if I'm getting bad service it's my own damn fault.

Now, I'm always open to the possibility that it could be me.  And I don't think I'm the only one who suspects he's being singled out for some reason for retail retribution.  Thank God for the internet, which is a great resource for those of us seeking confirmation of our subjective experiences in order to make sweeping indictments of others.

But the truth is: sometimes it really is just you.  The place this first occurs to most people is in bed.  I remember a particularly horrid little man I had been outmaneuvered into accompanying home for a mercy fuck asking me pityingly how long I'd been impotent.  "Only since we met," I replied. 

Sometimes we bring out the worst in someone.  There is something to be said for Physiognomy in this context.  Whether conditioned into us by images in advertising, or hardwired into the species (or both), we are constantly typecasting others on the basis of looks...

...whether they play to type is a matter of interpretation as often as not.  Still, I think there may be some basis for a theory of competing physiognomies. 

If, for example, a birdlike customer gets a catlike clerk, there'll be some tension between them.  You get a mongoose on one side of the counter and a snake on the other, there's gonna be trouble.  Elephants and mice.  Lions and gazelles. Tortoises and hares. All of these are potential customer service nightmares.

Whatever beast I resemble, it seems to be the natural enemy of crepe shop counter help.  And maybe even the crepe makers themselves.  because after devouring my breakfast crepe I looked down at my plate to find not one, but TWO EYELASHES!  And they weren't mine.  I did an inventory of them before I left the house. Someone back there is shedding.

But who sheds eyelashes like that?  One eyelash I can see, but two?  Why not twenty?  I mean, when does it end?  There were probably hundreds of them in that crepe I gobbled down without taking the time to examine it.  I walked around the rest of the morning feeling like I had an eyelash stuck in my throat. 

People complain about how machines are taking over.  But I actually prefer self-check-out at the supermarket to a surly clerk making minimum wage who wants to make sure I get exactly the minimum of service I'm paying for.  And now there's another argument in favor of the automaton: they don't have eyelashes.