A Night Drinking Gold Sounds Preferable

Story Sent in by Nina:

Vince and I went out to a coffee shop together for our first date. When it was our turn in line, he asked me what I wanted and said that it was on him. I thanked him, then ordered a medium drink.

The barista added it all up and said, "That'll be eight-fifty-four."

Vince cringed. "Ooh," he said, "That's a lot. How about knocking that down to six even?"

The barista frowned. "I'm sorry. Those are our prices."

"Your prices suck," Vince said, then turned to me. "We're out of here."

I was stunned, but I followed him out to the parking lot. He asked me, "What now?"

I replied, "We could… um… go to a diner. They probably have cheaper coffee."

"Good idea."

We went to a nearby diner. I ordered a drink and he ordered a drink and a fruit cup. Most of our time there, he decried the coffee shop. "Eight-fifty for two coffees," he muttered, "What are they made of? Liquid gold? Even if they were, liquid gold would be too hot and poisonous to drink. They were probably trying to kill us."

I said, "Well I'm glad that we at least found a place to sit and relax. Did you want to take a walk after this?"

He went on, raising his voice, "Back in my day, a place could get shut down for serving poison to its customers. Not anymore!"

"Back in your day? We're the same age."

"Thank god we lived to see this age. If we had stayed there, paid eight-fifty and drank that liquid gold, we'd be dead on the pavement. That'd be shitty, wouldn't it?"

"I guess."

"With holes in our throats from the heat of the gold. It would've burned out all of our organs."

"Let's stop talking about it."

"The best laxative of all! That's their plan. To clean out all the room in your body for more of their crap. I see right through it all."

The bill came not long after. He picked it up and stared at it for several moments. "Holy shit," he said, "Two cups of coffee and a fruit cup. Over nine-fifty?" He looked up. "Waiter!" he yelled.

The waiter came over. Vince said, "Nine-fifty-seven for two coffees and a fruit cup? Are you out of your mind? I could've picked fruit for free at the side of the road."

"But you got it here, sir," the waiter replied as if he'd had this conversation before, "We picked it for you."

"Bullshit," Vince said louder than necessary, "You had it shipped to you from a supermarket, and I know that it doesn't cost that much in labor to arrange the fruit in a fruit cup. Or maybe it does," he said, standing up, "I'm going to go ask your chef."

Vince strode away from the table. The waiter followed him. "Sir, you can't go in there…"

I hurried into my pocketbook, dropped two dollars on the table for my coffee, and left as quickly as possible. Vince sent me several texts, demanding to know where I was. I wrote him that there had been an emergency and had to go suddenly. He wrote back, "Yeah, whatever," and that was the last time that I've heard from him.