The Editor’s just arrived home from what he has declared Ed’s Day Of The Consumer. Four separate incidents occurred in the space of eight hours highlighting the constant battle between business, business and consumer.

Incident one
The Editor is waiting in line at the bank. An oldish Greek woman is being served by a trainee teller, assisted by an experienced teller. The trainee teller asks Greek woman for some ID in order to process her withdrawal.
“I no drive! How I have ID?” asks the Greek woman.
“I need to check you identification to make the withdrawal, ma’am,” replies the trainee.
“You ask that girl right there,” shouts the Greek woman, motioning her head towards the experienced teller. “She know me!”
The experienced teller interjects.
“Mrs Panopoulos, next time you’ll need to bring identification so the new employees can get to know you or you can’t make the withdrawal.”
The old lady decides to assert her consumer rights.
“It my money, with it I do what I want!”

Incident two
Grumpy lady walks into Dishpig’s cafe and orders a hot chocolate from Greg.
“Would you like a marshmallow?” asks Greg.
“No!” replies grumpy lady. “Too much fat already. I really wanted skinny milk but I suppose that’s my fault,” she continues in a tone of voice indicating it’s sooo Greg’s fault.

Incident three
Dishpig is looking after the cafe at the moment while the bosses are on holiday. This morning the milk supplier calls.
“Is Danni there?”
“Not at the moment, can I take a message,” replies Dishpig.
“You can tell her to find a new milk supplier,” replies the voice angrily.
Turns out that Danii owes nearly $2000 to the milk dude, had promised to pay a couple of hundred bucks a week, hadn’t made any payments for weeks and was now on holidays for a month. However, milk dude didn’t want to hear Dishpig’s protestations that he is merely a minimum wage pleb, not at all connected to the business and not worthy of the ear bashing. Dude bashed Dishpig’s ears anyway.

Incident four
The Editor’s been battling Creative recently over the replacement of his dud MP3 player. In late November he contacted Creative, described the problem and was told it was a common hard drive fault and the unit would be replaced. Before sending back the player a form would be emailed to Ed to be filled out and returned in the post. Next day, no form. Call again. Next day, no form. Contact customer service department via email and a three week email conversation follows that contains some fantastic Engrish (”I had already forward your issue to the relevant department. Please allow them some time to process, appreciate your patience and will contact you as soon as possible.”), meaningless apologies and… no form. Frustrated, Ed took the unit back to the place of purchase and they shook their head when describing getting warranty service from Creative.
“Like pulling teeth,” they said. “Really painful.”

Today The Editor called Creative to lay the smack down and threaten a Consumer Affairs complaint if a replacement player wasn’t provided by January 13 (three days before the beginning of Ed and McBec’s honeymoon.) Given that he first contacted Creative in November the lovely lady at the end of the Consumer Affairs helpline thought this was an entirely reasonable request. The voice at the end of the Creative phone line was the first real human response Ed has had from the company.
“It’s a shame you’ve taken it back to Myer. I would have you courier it to me right now, I’ll fill out the paperwork for you over the phone and then I’d send you back a replacement immediately in the overnight post.”

Fuck.

The Editor calls Myer to see if the Creative Zen Touch (Model SHITBOX2005) was on its way to Creative.
“Two days ago, dear,” says the lovely Myer lady.
The Editor calls Creative back.
“Can you guarantee that you’ll send me a replacement the moment the player arrives from Myer?”
“It’s a bit tricky, you see,” says CreativeMan. “Myer sends warranty returns back to our distributor who collects all returns before passing them onto us in bulk.”
“So when will my player get to you?” asks Ed.
“Hard to tell,” says CM, thinking. “Definitely not before the fourth of January but it’s anytime, really. They’re quite hopeless. I’ve just spent all morning on the phone to them myself trying to find a batch of returns from November.”
“Right them,” sighs Ed. “Can you at least assure me that you’ll pick mine straight out of the box when it arrives?”
“Can’t really do that, mate. Big box, you see. Don’t know what order we’ll go through it.”

The Editor is now going to assert his consumer power by never buying another Creative product again.

A lovely old lady walked into Dishpig’s cafe today. She was very small, petite, and well past retirement age. After some smalltalk about the weather she ordered a chocolate milkshake and some breakfast.
“I’ll have poached eggs, bacon — extra bacon — and some tomato on toast, please,” said lovely old lady.
“One serve of bacon is quite large. Are you sure you want extra?” asked Dishpig.
“Oh yes! I love bacon,” enthused lovely old lady.

So she sat down and sucked through the milkshake while her breaky was cooked. When the plate of food arrived Dishpig couldn’t help noting to co-worker Adelaide just how much tucker there was in relation to human and how much trouble the human might have finishing it all.
“Especially after chugging a pint and a half of milk and ice cream,” added Adelaide.

But the lovely old lady got going and manged to eat the tomato, half a slice of toast, one egg and one of the four large rashers of bacon.
“Can I have a doggy bag?” asked lovely old lady.
“For the bacon?” asked Dishpig.
“No, for the whole lot,” replied lovely old lady.
So into a paper bag went three rashers of bacon, a slice and a half of toast and — yes — a poached egg. Lovely old lady was last seen shoving the soggy paper container into her handbag and waddling east.

For the last few weeks The Editor has been growing a beard with the sole aim of grooming a fully sick moustache for a 70s style party last weekend. By the Saturday Ed’s growth was quite full and bushy and the resulting upper lip sculpting was, in fact, so revolting that McBec refused to even look at The Editor until it came off on Monday morning. To the party Ed wore a skin-tight yellow polyester shirt with massive collars and aviator sunnies. Everybody thought he looked great, and was a dead ringer for either Ron Jeremy or a motorcycle cop. One guy came up to Ed at the end of the party, quite drunk, and gushed about how fantastic the mo was and how he thought Ed was the freakin’ messiah or something. Witnesses said that the guy looked like he wanted to pants The Editor right there and then.

This adulation at the party made Ed feel rather fantastic and he went into work (as Dishpig) the next day with the mo still attached to show it off a bit. Imagine how crap he felt when a regular customer walked in and said “Dishpig! You look like Ian Hewitson.”

Here are two things that piss Dishpig off immensely:
* Customers who sit at a recently departed and dirty table when there are lots of clean tables available.
*Customers who can't understand that dishpigs can only carry so much stuff at once in their two hands:
“Here's a latte, a skinny decaf latte and a cappuccino.”
“Um, I ordered a flat white…”
“Yeah, mate, hang on. It's in my pocket.”

So imagine how angry dishpig got yesterday when these two things happened at once. A group of three moved from their perfectly clean table to a just-vacated and dirty table seconds before their food was to be delivered. Dishpig approached the new table with three plates of breakfast balancing precariously, the head bogan looks at him like a walking turd and says “mate, can you give this table a wipe before you put those down?” Dishpig marvels for a moment before replying “no worries. Just grab that rag out of my pocket and shove it in my teeth will you, mate?”

Dishpig was riding the tram home from uni yesterday afternoon when his phone rang. The screen declared that it was the cafe and Dishpig moaned, but answered anyway.
“Dishpig, it's Greg here.”
“Hey, what's up?”
“I don't think Weirdo will be coming in again any time soon.”
“What happened?”
“I just had a huge fight with her.”

Greg went on to explain that Weirdo tried to wrangle out of her bill as per tradition but took it too far. Normally she tries to bargain $11.20 down to $11 but this time flatly denied her second coffee ($2.70) and complained about her food price being too high. Greg wasn't standing for any of it. “I wasn't standing for any of it,” said Greg.

Weirdo started screeching about how Greg was being unfair and that the boss, Danii, had promised her a discount yesterday. “Danii wasn't here yesterday,” replied Greg. “It was only me and Dishpig.”

At this point Greg turned around and walked away, leaving a shrieking weirdo to yell at the coffee machine.

Dishpig's workplace: Weirdo free since 22 August, 2005.

Our favourite weirdo is still, unfortunately, a regular customer and has recently become a regular shitter too. We have a number of regular shitters (who order a coffee and then disappear into the toilet for five minutes or more) but Weirdo is the worst. Her average is ten minutes and her record is 19 (doubt not, we time her.) Almost every day she orders a skinny (she thinks) cappucino and her spanakopita and salad, eats it slowly and then runs to the toilet. The running bit is no joke — Dishpig has observed her through the kitchen window, calmly closing the door from the cafe to the back yard and then breaking into a sprint for the outhouse.

Last weekend she graced us with her presence twice and Dishpig and Greg had had enough by the second visit on Sunday. She ran off to the toilet so we checked the time and got on with our job. Every now and again, Dishpig would take advantage of the toilet's light switch in the kitchen and flick it on and off for a bit. As if she would say anything when she came back in.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

15 minutes.

Greg starts to run his bulimia theory by Dishpig again but Dishpig ain't buying it. She's a serial shitter — can pick 'em a mile off. At 16 minutes she emerges, picks up her bag and walks out without a word.

A few minutes later it's time to go and clean up the courtyard and toilet in preparation for closing time and Dishpig wanders into the outhouse. Dishpig walks back into the shop. “Greg. She's not bulimic.”
“What?”
“I've got proof.”

Dishpig returns to the toilet, cursing harder than ever his poor excuse for a living. Presses flush button. Water rises, and rises, and rises, with a little floater of turd on top. Dishpig weeps quietly in the courtyard for a few minutes and, thanks be to the God of dishes, the cubic metre of bog roll had softened up enough to suck down the s-bend and the worst had passed.

Next time Weirdo comes into the cafe Greg and Dishpig are going to put an 'out of order' sign on the dunny door.

The same people who insist on ordering a “cafe latte” in their best imitation Italian accent instead of a “lardey” in their actual Australian accent are now enunciating “see you” instead of saying “seeya” like the rest of us. Dishpig hopes they all die.

Dishpig's cafe's most popular food item is a very large toasted breakfast bagel consisting:
- 1 bagel
- 1 fried egg
- 2 large rashers of bacon
- Spinach
- Tomato
- A very generous portion of heart attack inducing homemade mayonnaise
- 2 slices of cheese

The most enthusiastic male patrons often sit back with both hands on their stomach upon completion, fully sated, while a lot of consumers fail to even finish this beast.

Today a group of hungover oh-so-cool guys came in for breakfast. You know the ones — the rubber thongs, 3/4 pants with stupid print all over them, bright pink polo shirt from Industrie (collar turned up just right) and carefully careless product filled hair. Tha Boyz each ordered a bagel except for the stupid and arrogant looking one who tried to order two bagels. Dishpig informed him that one would certainly be more than enough but Stupid And Arrogant was not to be deterred. Dishpig didn't care, it was his $15 and he could spew it up if he wanted.

About twenty minutes later Dishpig was clearing the tables and noticed Stupid And Arrogant sitting back with his hands on his stomach looking decidedly unwell. All of his mates were talking loudly but Stupid And Arrogant looked like the drunk guy in the corner at the pub that everyone's ignoring. Dishpig asked the group if they'd like coffees and lattes were ordered all round except for Stupid And Arrogant who slowly looked up, blinked with effort and ordered a skinny latte.

Freak comes into the cafe every weekend, orders a soy latte, sits at the table closest to the dishwasher and watches Dishpig work it. Dishpig desperately avoids eye contact or conversation due to previous bad experiences. This guy is a rolled gold freak.

Last Sunday Freak decides he's gonna have a chat, no matter what Dishpig wants. So he asks, loudly and pointedly, “How long does rice last for?”
Dishpig curses his luck and tries to wriggle out of the conversation.
“A day or two, maybe, in the fridge.”
“No, not cooked. Uncooked.”
“Oh, ages I'd say. Years probably.”
Freak pauses, waiting for Dishpig to ask why he wants to know. Dishpig doesn't so he volunteers the information.
“I went to see War Of The Worlds last night.”
“Hmm.”
“It got me thinking that I don't really have any disaster supplies.”
Dishpig looks to see if he is joking. He is not. Freak ponders the rice again.
“If you vacuum sealed it it would last years, I'd say.”

Dishpig was yesterday Coffeepig as he manned the caffeine machine during the morning rush of wageslaves craving grind on the way to the grind. Dishpig has often wondered about the sign that appears on his forehead while at work in the service industry that says: “Please tell me about all of your problems, fears and insecurities. Failing that, please tell me about the boring minutiae of your day.” A middle-aged lady took up the offer yesterday announcing that she was off to the protest in the Melbourne CBD against the proposed workplace law changes.

Dishpig just grunted and stared at the milk jug but the lady was unstoppable. She was obviously one of the many consumers who automatically think that anyone working in the service industry is dumb, uninformed and ignorant. For this reason she started to tell Dishpig all about the proposed changes in simple language, using words with no more than two syllables. Indignant, Dishpig stared back at her and enunciated clearly (nodding head for clarity) “I know, I know,” but on she went. Trying desperately to get Dishpig’s simple mind to grasp these tricky concepts she appealed to its emotions. “You know,” she started, “these politicians give themselves a pay rise anytime they want but don’t care about the workers like you. You can’t trust these filthy politicians.”

Joke’s on her. There was nothing skinny about her large skinny “cuppacino” at all.

Another aftenoon shift with James just recently and he was in a playful mood. Thinking (incorrectly) that Dishpig was in the upstairs staff toilet he stood in the back courtyard of the cafe underneath the toilet window and yelled: “Snap it off! Snap it off!” A funny man is James. After he had finished his half-dozen or so calls he turns to return inside only to have a traumatised and frightened old lady step out of the courtyard customer toilet that he had been standing and shouting next to.

Blessing our cafe with their presence several times a week are a group of Narcotics Anonymous members who drop in for coffee and sandwiches after their meetings. They are generally no hassle except that they take over the courtyard, use the toilet a bit too much and leave the most incredible mess including spectacularly overflowing ashtrays.

Most of the time they are straight. Occasionally they will show up after a session around the bucket bong or wild-eyed, trembling and chattering at light speed.

One particular afternoon I went out to deliver a few coffees and a falafel salad and interupted a heated argument about yesterday's episode of Judge Judy. The group was split fairly evenly in favour of the claimant and the defendent and the seriousness of the debate was on a par with the United Nations.

About half an hour later I went back out to the courtyard to clear some plates and, blow me down, the Narcs were still arguing about Judge Judy.

Half an hour later I went out again and watched a drug deal go down. They didn't give a shit that I was there.

Another weirdo in the long line of weirdos that frequent our cafe provided another moment of bemusement the other day. This particular weirdo comes in almost every day now that she has taken a shine to James and his beautiful long hair. Ordering a spanakopita and salad every time, she sits for hours forcing herself into every conversation that James and I try to have and turning the subject around to her. One day many months ago she tried to invite herself on Kath's holiday while on another occasion she tried to invite herself back to Mel's house after work. This chick is freakin' weird.

This particular day I am near the back of the shop sweeping and James is at the front, near the weirdo, playing with the coffee machine. Weirdo points out the door and says “look at that.”
James looks. His face blank. “What?”
“There! Across the road. It's a little chiko.”
I stare at James, trying to work out what the hell she's talking about. James squints, looks hard and says “huh?”
Weirdo points more forcibly and raises her voice. “There! Over the road a little black man is loading that van. He's a chiko!” Weirdo begins to giggle uncontrolably.
James stares at her with something resembling open hostilitiy. “That's not very funny,” he informs her.
“He he he he, ha ha ha ha.”

Tim Rogers of You Am I is a very nice man who doesn't look nearly as sweaty during the day as he does at night on stage. He drinks double espresso with a dash of cold skinny milk and smiles a lot.