When the Boss Comes a-Rolling In

Every morning, I camp out in a BHP petrol station after sending my first son to school. I like the atmosphere there....except for when it's raining (it gets freezing in there). I eat my nasi lemak, sip my coffee, my younger son feeds on his vitagen and play his game or do his homework there. This kakak There's this 40-ish lady working there, cleaning the floor and throwing the trash wan. Every morning, her face is black as charcoal. I ignore her most of the time, unless I need her to get me something lah. It's strange but I think she doesn't like me (particularly the fact that my kid sometimes makes a mess on the floor eating his Twisties) very much. But be it lah, sour face also OK lah. The cashier is much nicer. No Coffee Days For the past few days, there's been no coffee for me because they ran out of those disposable cups. Whenever I asked the kakak, she would not even turn around when telling me, "Takda". I think it was since last Thursday that I went coffee-less in the morning in the BHP Petrol station. Sometimes she would throw me the very 'mah-farn' look for good measure. I continue to ignore her. 2 men walks in This morning, it's close to eight-thirty in the morning liao and there's a light drizzle outside. Two men, appearing very respectable and well-educated (you know from the way they walk and talk that they're not the low-income earners that frequents the place). I usually take the low tables, as opposed to the high tables on account of the fact that I have a kid with me and that I was afraid he would fall off the chair (a bloody excuse but it worked so far and the other men don't seem to mind, so..) and most mornings, people ignore us and let us have our way with the table. The 2 men who walked in politely approached me and asked, "Miss, do you mind if we take one of the tables?" I nod, "Sure, sure. Go ahead. Sit down-lah" One of the men started pulling the table away and I quickly stop him, "No need-lah. Just sit here would be enough. Just sit lah" (Read: I need the tables stuck together so that I can place my newspaper over some parts of it. Otherwise, I have to hold the newspaper up) The man shook his head, "No, no. We will give you some privacy". Sheesh...give yourself the privacy is it? Too well-educated to sit will low-lives like me and my kids. Bah! Boss in our midst It was funny that suddenly, the kakak I mentioned earlier sort of sprung to life! She was bustling around like a very busy bee like got very important things to do. Then one of the men went to the coffee machine. "Eh? Mana itu cawan?" (Where's the cup?) The ashen-faced kakak stammered, "Takda-lah. Guna ini cawan, boss" Boss? "Saya tak mau ini cawan. Mana itu buang punya cawan?" (Where are the disposable cups?) "Tada. boss", a light bulb went off in her head and she pulled out taller cups hidden inside one of the drawners...these were cups that she never bothered to pull out for me before! Wah wah wah.....what an aboutturn she did, man. So, there we sat, him with his friend, me and my kid. My kid talked about the apple juice I was sipping and in a timely manner asked, "How come you're not drinking coffee today, mom?" The men stopped their drinking and eating. I noticed their plates a lot larger and got more things in their nasi lemaks wan....oh, I see....when the kakak said boss, she really meant BOSS. The man asked, "You wanted coffee?" "Hee hee..yeah. Few days no coffee here. No cups" The looked miffed, "Few days? Few days no cups?" Kakak look like she saw a ghost. The man motioned for kakak to take out another empty cup and fill it with coffee and asked her to give it to me. While putting sugar into the coffee, kakak siddled up to me and mouthed the words, boss, boss, boss. Ya-lah, I know lah. You're so whipped from here to Timbuktu, right? Turns out, the boss treated me to the coffee and apologized for making me suffer the previous mornings when I had to go coffee-less. Come to think of it, I am his boss because I am the customer, right? But then how come when he walks in, the kakak runs around like she's on heat and when I (albeit, the real boss) walk in, she treat me like a tadpole? Time to review the policy on customer service for the BHP petrol station, don't you think?