#5

She ordered a cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich from the fast food kiosk near her gate in the terminal. Giving her name to the cashier in a loud pleasant lilt, almost singing, she caused the other bleary passengers to look up from their phones. Positivity had become a rare sighting at the airport. The cashier handed her an empty paper cup and pointed to a carafe at the end of the counter. “Coffee’s over there.” She hummed a thank you and pulled the lever, looking forward to the hot burst of steam that would soon rise. Instead she got a few drops.

“Excuse me, this is empty.”

“You’ll have to wait, we are brewing a fresh pot.”

She had given herself just enough time before her flight was going to leave to enjoy her coffee. A few minutes of waiting would be fine, she told herself. And yet something about the airport, perhaps the angst that lingered forever in the air or the incessant beeping of the red cap trollies, made her say in the tone of a disappointed mother: “There should be another pot always ready to go at this hour.”

She immediately felt badly about. She knew that the fast food employees were underpaid and regularly had to deal with an unfair amount of disgruntled passengers. So when the hot carafe came out, she filled her cup and then left a dollar in the tip jar someone had fashioned out of an empty cookie tin. Scooting her way to her gate with a bit of urgency, she made it just in time to hear the announcement that her flight would be delayed an hour.