Being employed solely as a domestic engineer (aka housewife) over the past 9 weeks, I have had a lot of time to sit in coffee shops reading and writing and people watching. It has been a wonderful perk of an otherwise somewhat lonely few weeks.
When I install myself in a corner of any given shop with my black coffee steaming quietly in front of me it is guaranteed that at the very least four separate and distinct types of coffee-shop regulars will appear in front of me.
#1 - The Baby-Mama
This woman is almost always in her mid 20's to mid 30's with her young infant strapped to her body as some form of human accessory. Meeting other women with or without children her double-tall, decaf, nonfat latte resides in a to-go cup ready at any instant to bolt for the door if the child makes any sign of distress, but nearly every time the infant behaves itself until the coffee grows cold over long conversations about household designs or who else is joining the mommy-club. When leaving, quick hugs and promises to call one-another and baby-mama strolls out the door, her adult interaction complete for the day.
#2 - The VERY Important Entrepreneurial Businessman
This fellow in his designer jeans and button-front shirt is plugged into his laptop and iPhone with books titled "The Fast-Forward Way of Project Management" and "Getting Things Done" piled on top of his yellow legal pad. The baristas all know this fellow by name as he has adopted this shop as his temporary office and his double-short latte or tall mocha (it varies by the day) is almost always prepared before he can finish the jovial conversation across the counter. As long as I stay in any given coffee shop, this fellow stays even longer, making phone calls, emailing and otherwise ensuring his business survives until the following week.
#3 - The Retiree
Seattle PI in one hand, mug of drip coffee in the other, this wonderfully grey-haired man instills himself at a table by a window and whiles away the hours reading each and every article before him. Pausing only when a cross-word clue escapes him, his intensity towards the work before him makes me wonder why or how he gave up normal 9-5 employment. Sharp as a tack and with a wit that is a bit too arcane for the young scamps of baristas that serve him, he stays until his self-appointed task is complete, pausing on the way out to receive a "warm-up" on his coffee.
#4 - The Coffee-Breaker
Stilettos peeking out from pressed black slacks, perfectly coifed hair bouncing around her shoulders and a purse that could quite possibly contain a small child, this woman struts into the shop ordering her americano with a no-nonsense tone. It is "to-go" but after sneaking a look around her for an empty chair, she slips into it setting her purse before her and for just an instant her shoulders sink, she sighs and pulls a magazine out of the black hole of a purse. Only allowing herself 5 minutes maximum she flips through the pages, occasionally checking her cell phone for the time. In one fluid motion she scoops the magazine back into the purse, swings it onto her shoulder, grabs her coffee cup and is back to the real world.
And then there is me...laptop or book in front of me, headphones plugged into the sides of my head, voyeuristically and surreptitiously watching everyone else, profiling them. Somehow knowing that each of these people has a back-story, a life outside the coffee shop makes watching them even more interesting. Here caffeine is the drug of choice and we all are addicts in one way or another. Some like baby-mama and retiree are addicted to the human interaction, while businessman and coffee-breaker just need the feeling of coffee coursing through their veins.
That's my story and I'm sticking too it.
