Grumpy Old Man

So, as the afternoon has gotten more humid I sat in front of the television set enumerating the number of projects I have going:

1) Job Search
2) Starting Business
3) Short-story Collection
4) PhD Applications

Any one of those things is enough to make up a full agenda; all four of them at one time is lunacy. And yet I'm tackling all four, and making progress on none of them sitting in front of the TV watching Law & Order reruns. So, I hoisted my ever-expanding ass off the sofa and decided to wander down to the corner cafe with a small-business marketing book and my laptop and see what I could get accomplished.

The place was littered with people, lounging and doing crossword puzzles or staring out into space. In Rogers Park there is a certain element that cultivates a pseudo-Bohemian air, complete with Indian print skirts and anti-establishment tattoos. They reek of patchouli and NPR and in my best moments I have a hard time stomaching them. The only available tables were outside.

Perhaps it's my lack of security in a job, or perhaps I just getting crotchety, but I wasn't particularly kindly disposed to anyone in the cafe. I know I don't have a job, but do none of these people have to work? Or bathe? Is this really the haven of the great unwashed in Rogers Park? The charm of the neighborhood coffee shop is definitely waning. I miss the sterile uniformity of my Caribou Coffee. Still, although not exactly earnings generating, I have work that needs to get done. I was happy to make do with an outside table.

I stood in line. Now, my coffee-house orders are very simple: diet soda. I'm willing to accept that most people go to coffee houses and pay outrageous prices in order to get exactly what they want, no matter how precious the order might be. I stood behind a man who ordered a cappuccino with Splenda. A completely acceptable, nay downright manly coffee-house order. The young lady behind the counter asked for her three dollars.

To this request, the gentleman took exception. He paused and stared up at the menu that had been carefully etched in colored chalk.

"The price says two, seventy-five."

The young woman came around the counter and looked up at the menu. "No, that's a cafe au lait. The small cappuccino is three dollars." She returned to her proper place behind the counter.

Now, understand that I had waited patiently while his order was being made. She did an excellent job. But I simply want to give the woman my money. Customers pour their own sodas. It's hot and sticky and I'm being eye-balled by the over-weight senior citizen with a crop of dreadlocks shooting from the back of her head. (More on her later) I want my soda.

"Does that three dollars include a chocolate chip cookie?" Apparently sugar in a cappuccino is unacceptable, but the healthful combination of butter, brown sugar and chocolate is FDA approved.

I lost it. Part of my frustration comes from this gentleman letting the line back up behind him while he smooths his tie and tries to save a quarter and get a free cookie. I had enough and left. I walked across the street to the racist convenience store and for a dollar forty-five bought the same diet soda that a black person would be charged two dollars and came back home. As I crossed the street, I saw Mr. Cappuccino getting into his gleaming Mercedes.

I hope she got the quarter out of him.