I stood there, coffee in one hand and money in the other.
Walking away would have been the simple option, but I stood there waiting to pay my $1.50 for the coffee. No one came. As I waited a very tall, very well dressed man walked by, we nodded quietly towards each other as men do.
"Excuse me, you don't happen to know where I should leave my money do you" I asked him indicating to the coffee in my hand and the unmanned booth.
He turned and looked at me as if I had just told him I had slept with his mother and you wouldn't believe the things she did.
"I don't work here" he replied staring me down, he was considerably bigger than me.
"Ok" I said sheepishly and quickly turned away.
What I hadn't realised and was only quietly told later by a colleague, in that hushed, I hate to tell you this but your B.O is a problem sort of way, was that he actually thought, I thought, he worked there because of the colour of his skin. You see, what my stupid Scottish brain hadn't taken into account was that I was in California and the tall, good looking, well dressed person I had asked was, as a friend of mine once said, not quite white or in other words, very black.
The underlying message here was, don't assume I serve coffee just on account of the colour of my skin. The problem was I didn't and hadn't.
Eventually I just left my money next to the sugar and walked away, too scared to ask anyone else.
That was California, probably the most race sensitive place on earth. I should have known but being the stupid, teuchter that I am I just did what I normally do and that is treat everyone the same, regardless of race, which I sorta thought what was supposed to happen.
The Tartan Army fell foul of this at the weekend. A banana skin was thrown onto the pitch at some point during the Brazil v Scotland game and the new Brazilian superstar in the making Neymar shouted racism. He complained that he had been jeered throughout the game and there is no place for racism in football.
Absolutely Neymar, we all concur with that sentiment along with the Miss Iowa winner who states that she wants world peace - both very worthy sentiments.
You see the problem is, they weren't jeering you because of your skin colour Neymar. They were jeering you because every time someone brushed against you you fell to the floor like your legs had been cut off, they were jeering you because you rolled around the grass in agony then jumped up to take the resulting free kick.
Oh and they were also jeering you because of that stupid fucking haircut.
Now, another thing about being Scottish is that we understand our place in the footballing world. We are the underdog, we are going to lose, we know that, however we will also make a lot of noise and party as hard as if we had won - that is the point of the whole thing. If we win every so often then even better but ultimately we are going to have a good time, win or lose. The abuse from the terrace will also be racially neutral - you will be abused regardless of your skin colour.
The verbal discontent Neymar felt on the pitch on Sunday was 100% because he acted like a total fanny, had he not done so and played as well as he did, then he would probably been applauded by the Scots, however he didn't and he definitely wasn't.
There is a good lesson to be learned from this - don't act like a small girl with a stupid haircut in front of 40,000 drunk men in tartan skirts. If Elton John had walked on to the pitch do you think he would have received a better welcome, probably not and the last time I looked he was white.
I sincerely hope Neymar learns from this but I somehow doubt it.
The banana skin was thrown from the Brazilian supporters end, by a German.
Not sure what that says about anything, nothing probably, but its what actually happened.
