Monday, November 24, 2008

Coffee Shop Denizens


It is a cold and stormy night..Really it is. So who else has decided to come out in the spitting rain for a little fellowship and hot beverages at the coffee shop down the road a bit?

Beside me is a youngish military guy in a cap covered with various insignia, but he's hunched over a fat white paperback like a man trying to light a cigarette in the wind. He taps his feet dysrhythmically, which annoys the hell out of me, but this was the only empty comfy chair in the joint. I refuse to get up. Every once in a while he squints at me and then resumes ignoring me. This man is an incessant fidgiter.

At a pair of tables across from us is a pair of young OBC Marines, one white and one Asian, studying fat ring binders, highlighters in hand. One is totally cleanshaven of both face and head, the other has a brand new high and tight as evidenced by the shiny white newly exposed skin of his scalp. He has an odd bump on the back of his head. It's not discolored, but it shouldn't be there either. I wonder how he got it.

Behind the Marines is a table of nursing students reviewing anatomy and physiology. One is an older white woman, the other two mid twenties age black women. They completely ignore everything around them. They are currently studying the musculature of the lower abdomen, bladder and groin area.

Near the coffee counter is a mixed race white- Asian middle aged couple surfing the internet. The male plays with the mouse while the woman leans back in her chair with her hands behind her head. He murmurs quietly while she stays mostly silent. They have clearly been here for a good while and show no signs of leaving.

Another man sits alone at a table with an empty cup in front of him. He's eaten some kind of cold blender creation. They're yummy, but I have a mocha of my own. He too studies something, but he's a pen tapper & lip chewer. A fat backpack sits on the floor beside him.

Image is of a cafe in Vienna called Aida and was found on Wikimedia. No, I'm not in Vienna. I wish I was.

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