  the Sugar Frees.  there are three of them.  a mother and her two kids.  they are all over the age of fifty.  they always arrive somewhere around three thirty/ four o'clock in the afternoon.
 they come for happy hour ( buy one get one free or a dollar off any drink over two dollars)  Toasted Marshmallow Man gets a 12 ounce latte with three shots and three times as much toasted marshmallow syrup as one would normally put in a twelve ounce drink.  with whole milk.  he's somewhere around the age of sixty.  he's very very conservative and likes guns.
 he's crass and once made a remark about how the baristas are all going to college and working at the coffee shop until they get pregnant and have to get married.  something along those lines.  he's also made comments to the two guys who work for the gas company that stop in the afternoon for coffee.  he also likes to buy five pounds of coffee beans and gets one pound ground and then will bring in the following four pounds every few days to get some of it ground.  the mother daughter team drink twelve ounce ( unless it's hot outside.
 then they're iced sixteen ounces)  lattes with any sugar- free syrup.  besides watermelon or strawberry.  because mom is allergic to strawberries,  and so they just want to be safe.
 and it's up to the barista which flavor they drink.  i always mixed and matched.  vanilla and hazelnut.  or chocolate and english toffee.  or i'd do just plain vanilla.  easy enough.
 when they pulled up the boss would say "  Sugar Frees!  which sounds as unnerving as it looks.  we would get to work immediately.  along with their drinks they got two ballpoint pens,  two straws,
 two napkins and the daily word jumble.  ( which was usually in the back 'cause us baristas did the crossword puzzle every day.  they would sit down at the same table and do the jumble.  and it has to be mentioned that the mother of these two people was rumored to be 92 years old.  she was a sweet old lady (
which was always sort of strange because the old fella was so mean.  and you could hear her laughing whenever they couldn't solve a word or at something someone said to them,  usually about how they're in there every day.  and after they finished their lattes,  they would bring the cups around and get regular coffee out of the airpots.  (
we brewed eight coffees every day.  over and over.  this always made the employees snort and complain because they would get the happy hour deal and then drink a bunch of regular coffee for free.  milking us for all they could.  that's the Sugar Frees.  *
 i also had a run- in with toasted marshmallow man outside of the coffee shop.  my roommates and i had a yard sale one year.  and he stopped over.  and bought this jacket my roomie jen bought for a college party.  it was an old granny bingo looking jacket.
 with flashy designs on it.  i think it was part of a running suit ensemble.  but he tried it on and purchased it.  and then asked jen ( verbatim)  "
Can I use your bathroom to take a piss?  what a sweetheart.
