How much?

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There's something wrong with our sofa. If I sit on it I nod off. I don't think it's anything to do with the whisky - definitely a sofa problem. So the best place to read anything is in a bar. If I fall asleep on a bar stool it hurts as gravity does its thing.

I have little routines about which bars I use to get a coffee and so where to read. On Wednesday and Friday morning en route to my classes in Escombreras I stop off at a nice little spot just beside a petrol station. My two cups are served by a very pleasant woman and habitually set me back the princely sum of 2€. But not today, today with a new younger woman behind the bar I paid 2.20€. Odd I thought but, being British, I said nothing.

As I drove away though it rankled a bit. The it struck me that it happens quite a lot. In the place I use on Ramon y Cajal for my intercambios the four drinks for the two of us usually come out at 4.40€ but a couple of weeks ago they were 4.80€ and in Santa Florentina it was 20c cheaper this week than last.

It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to see the pattern. It's to do with small black coffees and larger white ones. Individual servers are making the decision about the price on either size or colour according to their own criteria. 

Perhaps if I start asking for a long black coffee instead of an American coffee I can maintain my reading as an inexpensive habit.


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