Frequently Dining at a Nearby Coffee Shop
June 2, 2008I really can’t complain as I’m getting a little help from work for installing internet at home, but it’s been difficult living without it and I will have to continue feeling so disconnected from the world UNTIL THE 13TH. Yikes. Until then, I thought that I could borrow a little bandwidth from the neighbors, but they’ve all secured their networks. I was so surprised. And no, I haven’t attempted to hack into anybody’s. Instead, I’ve been going to some of the places were I have profiles and access—namely my brothers’ and parents’ homes. And then Saturday night, in order to get some things done for class, I went to a coffee shop up the street from me.
Try and imagine: it’s Saturday night and you just got home from a fancy shmancy awards dinner (the Best of State awards dinner, to be exact). You try jumping onto a neighbor’s wireless network only to find them all protected. So I decide to stop into the shop up the street that has crepes and is open until 1:00 am—I asked Lilly at dinner the other night and they have wireless.
The shop is called the Greenhouse Effect and they have a recycling bin in the back (so I can still be good to Mother Earth since we don’t have one at my new complex, if I choose to drive my recyclables to this location… save the planet or save gas, hmm). I pulled in a little after 11:00 pm and went in to order a peach-raspberry Italian soda. I forgot to ask them to put cream in so it wasn’t quite sugary enough for me, but you really can’t do wrong making one of those. It was too hot and stuffy inside and I made the mistake of sitting outside.
Why was it a mistake? Who do YOU think eats outside on the patio of a coffee shop at 11:00 pm on a Saturday night?
I should have braved the humid warmth inside instead of coughing in the wafting smoke from the cigarettes of the other diners outside.
It wasn’t too bad at first and I started reading through the discussions from my class while checking in with Kow and Kaakun (who else would be online with me on a Saturday night?). And then two foreign men came towards me.
I honestly thought for a minute that they were going to talk TO ME. Couldn’t they tell from my intense stare at my laptop screen that I was participating in classroom discussion? But they didn’t talk to me. At least not that I could tell. I have no idea what language they were speaking so for all I know, they were talking about me the whole time in Bulgarian or Russian or perhaps Aeolic Greek. The English translation possibly being:
“Check out the chick at the table in the corner.”
“She looks rather stuffy compared to the rest of this crowd.”
“Yeah, and I haven’t heard her cuss once.”
“Let’s sit by her and blow our smoke at her.”
“Amen, brother.”
As soon as the first guy lit up, I thought about getting up and relocating to a table below the porch, but would that be rude? I don’t know why I was worried about being rude to these men. Clearly, they didn’t care about the air I was breathing.
I bid farewell to Kow and Kaakun, closed up my laptop and took my lungs home. When I go back next for more schoolwork, I’ll sit inside and work up a sweat. Also, I’m going to try the crepes next time. I’m not sure they can compare to Meghan’s.
“who else would be online with me on a Saturday night?”
to be fair I had just gotten home from an AWESOME camping trip…
was deleting all my RSS feeds that I didn’t care about… and you just happened to be online.
being 2/3rds of the line up of the famed ILK vegas trip. I felt inclined to say your 1/3 was missed.
The crepes are good! and cheap! Thank goodness for lefty salt lake! (you know i had to get a political comment in there)
@kaakun: it’s a pity shame that my 1/3rd was missed, but like you said, I might have just made facetious remarks about the flame-quality of the campfire
@Joseph: I had one of the crepes last night and agree, it’s tasty. I’m surprised since it was from lefty salt lake. (I enjoy contradicting people’s comments, esp if they’re political)