Sunday, October 22
I went to the local coffee shop this morning. The chap that makes the coffee was “running 10–15 minutes late”.
You had one job, coffee shop. I can’t wait till the new place is open, then you’ll be sorry. Mark my word, etc.
The new place that’s opening across the street isn’t even its own shop. It’s like an island, on the footpath, much like a public toilet. It’s in clear view of my current coffee shop, which is problematic. It’s going to be like cheating on your girlfriend with another girl that lives out the front next to your letter box.
It’s going to be hard to conceal.
My hope is that they have, like, a super beautiful woman working there — a Cindy Crawford type — so that if ever I get confronted by the dude from the old coffee shop, we can have a bro-moment (a broment) and I can insist that he must understand because “dude have you seen that chick?” and I can make a gesture like a dog mounting another dog.
Actually maybe a super-hot guy would work even better. I suspect he would not be concerned about losing a fag as a customer.
Last week I saw two things, on two separate days, in exactly the same place.
The scene: a piece of road that is under construction; goings-on include shovelling and standing around and traffic re-directing and so on and so forth.
Day one: I saw a lady shovelling tar or gravel or something, I forget if it was out of a wheelbarrow or into a wheelbarrow, but it was definitely one of the two. And she was doing it just like a man would normally do. She was undoubtedly stronger in every dimension than I am and I was struck that this is the first woman that I have ever seen in this sort of role. If you told me that only 2% of people filling this role were women I’d think yeah that sounds about right. But for her to be the only one, what a thing!
Then I felt sad for the shit that she probably has to put up with. On the upside, at least she’s not a Hollywood actress. (ooh, topical)
Day two: There was a dude with long curly hair holding one of those signs that says “Stop” on one side and “Slow” on the other. As a child, whenever I saw someone holding one of those signs saying “Slow”, Dad would tell me that it was a retarded person, and they made them hold those signs so you knew who the retards were.
Anyhoo, you may have seen these signs held so that the stick part is on the ground and the sign part with the words is up in the air.
But not this guy.
This guy was smarter than that. He had combined his two passions in life: directing traffic with a sign, and playing air guitar. He was jamming away like a man possessed (Bat out of Hell, if I’m not mistaken) while the cars piled up around him.
Actually no cars piled up, that was a lie. This was a dead end street with no traffic. One could argue that this man’s presence was not required. But he put a smile on my face, so one could argue that his existence is not entirely without purpose.
In the coffee shop on Friday, the chap asked what I do. I’m sure we’ve had this conversation before, but I love small talk so I allowed it. I explained that I don’t always work from home, but I’ve had a shitty back for the last few weeks.
He looked at my back. Which from his vantage point was my stomach, the right side (his left). There are several problems with this. First of all, my t-shirt isn’t see through. Second of all, my stomach isn’t see through. Third of all, I’m not sure that there’s anything to actually ‘see’ in the traditional sense.
Perhaps he thinks he has healing-power-vision and he was just trying to help by focusing his rays on my back. Like kissing a boo boo better. Maybe I should have a more positive outlook on life.
