Coffee, Owls

[den]

I have to wonder about people who call to have animal picked up. I always phone to let them know I'm on my way but today the call went like this:

Me: Hi it's Den from WIRES here.
Him: Who?
Me: Den, from Wires.
H: Who?
Me: The animal rescue mob.
H:Oh.
[long pause.]
Me:Is that Lee?
H:Who?
Me: Lee. He called about an owl.
H: erm...
Me: Apparently one was being attacked by crows.
H: Oh. Yeah.
Me: I'm calling to let you know I'll be around to pick it up in--
H: I called an hour ago.
Me: I know. I'm just knocking off from work, so I'll be around in--
H: Yeah, but I've had the bird for an hour. I thought you wanted things like this.
Me: We do. I'll be there in 10 minutes. I'm just leaving the office now.
H: Yeah, well. I called an hour ago.
Me: See you soon.
H: Seeya.

As he hung up I heard someone in the background shout "Who is it?"
"Fuckin WIRES. He'll be here in--" and the line went dead.

So I picked up a thouroughly annoyed barn owl in a box. ("Crikey! He's a bit stroppy!") The bloke's attitude and contant "Call an hour ago" really got to me, so I decided I needed a coffee from a large multinational take-away franchise. The food at this place is consistantly boring, but their coffee is always good-ish. It's certainly better than the instant I have at home. I left the owl in the car, entered the store and ordered a coffee at the counter. "Large flat white, 1 sugar please."

Coffee for me is a caffein delivery system. I don't need double mocha lattes with extra cream and a twist of lemming. Forget the fancy froths and syrups, I just want coffee, dammit, and be FAST. The young fellow behind the counter was very efficient. Coffee ground, cups filled, milk heated in a few minutes. He placed the coffee in front of me, sprinkled on some powdered chocolate...

We looked at the Cappucino. "I'm so sorry!" he stammered. "That's not what you wanted!"

"'Sokay," I mumbled. "Now that it's made I'll take it."

"Look, how about I just charge you for the flat white, and you take this one?"

"That will be fine," I said. The deal was agreed upon. Now all that was needed would be an exchange of goods: coffee for money. The coffee was mine!

Then the Manager intervened. He'd heard our exchanged, and came over to berate the coffee maker. Note to Managers: Don't tear into your staff in front of the Customers; it makes everyone except yourself feel bad. The manager then apologized to me, and grabbed my coffee. MY coffee! He grabbed my coffee and took it away. At that moment I leapt the counter and bit him on the face.

No I didn't, but I bloody well should have.

"Make what he ordered!" he said, and the poor counter attendant did as he was told. I sipped on the coffee and was cranky in the car, along with the owl.

Anyway. Owl was fine. I let her go half an hour ago.

Comments

Rehab = worth

[frith]

Excellent. 8^) I mentioned the rehab success thing as a point of interest, not as an examination of your method. Personally, I feel that the demonstration of interest in wildlife welfare through rehab networks vastly outweighs actual rehab success rates in the contribution to efforts to raise awareness and intrinsic value of habitat/diversity in the mind of the general public (and policy makers).

Re: Rehab = worth

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

I just spoke to our Owl Rehabber, and she has an old barn turned into an aiviary specifically for barn owls. It's full of old machinery, a small hay stack and a few bags of grain. The owls have room to fly and the other stuff attracts rodents.

The young owls get a lot of hunting practice before they're released, and release is done by opening the door. She doesn't do hard releases.

Re: Rehab = worth

[frith]

That sounds as close to ideal as you can get without getting wild owls to foster chicks. 8^)