Cold War...

There are a certain people with whom you can never build a rapport. No matter how much you smile at them, or try to get into a polite conversation, they would always look down upon you as if you have been the reason why they lost their smile.

One such guy is the "toast wala" outside my office. Lets go back to a year and a half back, when i had first hit his shop for an obvious reason of grabbing a quick bite. Now, one of the reasons why you would eat a sandwich is that you want to save time and trouble of going to a restaurant. But, it wasn't so easy for me. I ordered the sandwich, and patiently waited. After some time, when I asked him about the sandwich, he gave me a "can't you see how much work I have?" look followed by a "dont dare ask about your sandwich again" frown. I was taken aback, and defended myself by saying "its been quite some time now," to which he refused to even react. I decided to stay calm, and waited for my sandwich to be prepared. Finally i ate it, and forgot the incident after a while.

But, next time I visited the shop, the same thing happened, only this time the owner gave me a "you always have to make a fuss out of everything" look and stared at me as if I was from some other planet. I was quiet this time, considering his shop had almost all of my office thumping here and there, trying to order or collect their sandwiches. Ever since then, I haven't been able to build a good rapport with this guy. Everytime I visit his shop, there's a strange exchange of looks that happens between the both of us. And although i try to politely ask doubts regarding the preparedness of the sandwich, he would almost always ignore me, or worse reply with an angry remark. So much so that now I have stopped trying. I just go order, and then wait outside until he or his helper calls me. Atleast I don't have to keep trying anymore. I know for a fact that this is it how its going to be. The "toast wala" and me are always going to be at a cold war, blaming each other for that first tiff, and hoping that we don't have to see each other. But, we both know we can't avoid seeing each other :)