Most of us who work the morning shift at Aldo Coffee have no problems getting up early. In fact, we'll tell you it's quite relaxing having the store to ourselves in the pre-dawn hours, getting things ready for the day's business. Once everything's in place, we open the doors and things gradually build up to a busy morning. We're cheery, you're cheery, everything is copacetic.
Except for one day of the year.
Apparently not everyone celebrates Mole Day. But Mt. Lebanon's students celebrate it with a vengeance.
We usually get in between 5:45 and 6:00am to get things going before opening the doors at 6:30am.
That doesn't work on Mole Day. By 6:02am (the official start of the holiday) there are already dozens of students out front milling about waiting for the doors to open. By the time 6:30am comes, their numbers have doubled.
This year we're opening the doors earlier and putting extra staff on. Yet no matter how many we put on, it still won't be enough.
It's pure mayhem. Being high school students, very few drink just coffee. It's all frappes and smoothies and chais. Orders come in rapid-fire. Staff scrambles to keep up while reaching into every bin of every ingredient in the shop to fill orders during the onslaught. Both blenders are going constantly. Baristas are bumping into each other. It's the only time (besides Light Up Night) where we have to ask for names and write them on the cups in order to keep things straight.
And then by the time 7:30am rolls around, it's over. The kids are on their way to school, hopefully to learn how to apply Avogardo's Number to something more practical than getting a smoothie at the crack of dawn.
How will you be celebrating?
I'm wondering if they would be so gung ho about this if they had to calculate moles without the use of a calculator - slide rules were even a challenge back in my high school days.
Posted by: Larry | October 25, 2009 at 05:57 PM