The Coffee Shop Reflections

In the coffee house, alongside the mobile phone shop, sandwiches-on-the-go store, and the "best prices in town" jewelry dealer, the chatter which arises from the clones seated beside me only seems to deepen the irritation I feel as I reflect back on the traffic I've just endured.

I must have really wanted to be here, for I just willingly suffered through ten minutes of sitting still in the left turn lane in order to make it into the tiny parking lot. As I stared at my blinker taunting me on the dash among my other signal lights while I sat behind the wheel, it too seemed to irritate me by its little click-click-click noise. The obnoxious black Lexus in front of me reflected my blinker back at me in its shiny rear hatchback, and I started to gauge how close together our blinkers were timing themselves before they lost their match in rhythm and the on/off ratio of timing started over. The cars to my left in the opposing lane crunched up bumper to bumper as far as the eye could see and I suddenly thought of them as a sort of automobile accordion as they spewed forth their exhaustion and nasty fumes. It's funny how I never tend to think of the cars as having a driver behind the wheel, I simply see them as if they were living beings with dark tinted eyes. My little Yaris hatchback would be a bubbly, friendly and cute being, while most of the other beings would be fat assholes. Why? They are over sized, road hogging, gasoline guzzling, gluttonous, over priced pieces of shit, equipped and fully loaded to the brim with bullshit extras. They are American cars. They are guaranteed to feed your need for heated seats so your ass doesn't freeze, and your button pushing obsession for easy access and immediate gratification so that (God forbid!) you do not get distracted from that important cell phone conversation. They will also raise your children while you're away - which is all the time, by the way. We are fully loaded and backed by our promise to hog lanes, and dominate competition by being bigger, better and trans fat free! Feel free to indulge, assholes!


I thought of all this as I sat in the lane staring at my blinker. I just wanted to get to the coffee house for wi-fi for Christ's sake. It's funny how I felt the cars summed up my sentiments toward America's tendency to dominate.


So here I now sit at a tiny round table which appears to be made of wood, but I know better. The tables came from some factory which assembled them from parts that were made in another factory, ultimately from China is my guess. They are particle board, as it is easy to produce and cheap.

Like people.


They are particle board with an adhesive sticker slapped onto it which contains a fake wood grain pattern, stained cherry color and giving the impression of real wood. I bet they sold this table and chair set to this coffee shop for 10 times the amount that it cost to produce it in their factory with their foreign made parts. The coffee shop paid it so I can sit here with my bottle of over priced water with a label slapped onto it which claims to fund a project in a foreign country to help produce a water well so the children can have clean water in some village in Africa. Who really knows if that well is being dug or not? I bet you the water bottle lies. Call me skeptical.


The woman to my right is sitting at a similar table sipping her God-knows-what-kind-of-mixture-of-coffee-concoction, dressed in some long skirt and plain shirt and complaining to her friend on the phone. Apparently her car is in the shop and she hasn't the funds to fix it. I feel like telling her to stop buying over priced coffee for starters, but I remain silent. She looks like some kind of gypsy with that garb on, all she needs is a bandana and large hoop ear rings. Perhaps she might make a good apothecary, if a fitting wardrobe were the sole requirement for the job. She looks like she might be some exotic apothecary who travels with a gypsy circus. I can't help but laugh at this thought, and she has no idea that she amuses me as I giggle beside her. Perhaps it is not she who amuses me, but rather my wild imagination.


I just came to this shop to write down some thoughts on my little laptop from Japan which is stuffed with more Chinese parts, since my home seems to provide too many distractions at the moment. I am now done with my evening math class tonight, having sat through more basic crap on numbers. Numbers are SO boring and SO without inspiration that I cannot even seem to write a creative sentence regarding them. Structure. Order. Perfect precision. Concrete building blocks and killers of all joy: numbers. There, I made a creative fragment, and that's close enough to a sentence.



My classmates disturb me every time I am exposed to them! English class is far worse at disrupting the balance of tranquility that I constantly attempt to keep in place than my math class is. Math is not nearly as interesting as of a subject as English, but it is far less disturbing. I do not know if I can truly convey the sorrow I feel in regards to my fellow students' English skills, or lack thereof. All I can say is that it is sickening to me, considering the fact that everyone in the class graduated high school. I know this for a fact, for they all stated this whenever we introduced ourselves to the class on the first day. If we Americans cannot speak and/or write English beyond that of a 6 year old, then maybe I should move to another country. I've spoken to people who had English as a second language who were more literate than my fellow countrymen.


I was a bit late to my math class tonight as I arrived out of breath to all the on lookers seated at their desks. I was the last one in, and I offered up an apology as I signed the roster and took a seat in the back. The professor, Dr. Thomas, continued to write the mind numbing symbols on the board as everyone stared at their books while writing something in their papers to their right. Everyone in the class is right handed. The class is mostly full of white people. There are only 4 black people, 3 of which are males. I suddenly felt both sympathy and admiration for the black female, wondering how she must feel. She is, after all, a loner.

I didn't know what page we were on or what the students were writing, but I figured it must not be important. After all, work is submitted over the internet and there are no tests to speak of until Sept 10th. Instead of working, I just let my curious eyes and mind wander to everyone in the class. Everyone is very expensively dressed - I saw name brands on nearly every person, head to toe as if I were looking at the cast of Transformers the movie. Product placement was all over the room, I could practically smell the mall oozing from their threads. After all, they'd be left void and lifeless if they didn't sport such articles of clothing, right? I dare not take away their only identity.


The girl in front of me changed her hair style but she still looks like all the other white girls in the room. She appears to me like a stamped, cookie cutter cloned Barbie doll, all plastic and tanned to perfection. Dyed blond hair, all hiply styled and featuring bangs parted from an odd angle, makes its way down her back which contrasts against her little pink baby-T that hugs her frame. I believe in the worlds view she would be considered cute or hot. She matches all the other white girls in the room, though. They could all be sisters for all I knew. The white guys are a bit more varied. Most are sporting cool name brands and baseball caps, baggy pants and jerseys or T-shirts. I think most look fairly fit though, I can imagine they would all be able to out-run me if I were to try and race them. The woman behind me to the right keeps sighing as if she is irritated by something, but I do not know what it is. I feel like turning around and asking her to stop irritating me, but ah...the world does not revolve around me and my weird habit of observing and analyzing people, does it?



My professor has messy hair which sloppily curls every which way and falls over his forehead in an unruly manner. He is a nice fellow, and I actually like his cheesy sense of humor. If I am forced to take a horrible math course, I am glad to have him as a teacher. He has kind of artsy fartsy hair actually, and I think he only needs a little beret to look like a full fledged yuppie. Well, an old yuppie, if there is such a thing. Maybe if he had a little, pencil thin mustache he would look like a cartoon character. I think this class would be more amusing if it were taught by a cartoon character, but we wouldn't accomplish anything, would we? We'd pull out our hidden, over sized wooden mallets - conveniently able to mysteriously fit into our pockets somehow - and start whacking each other over the head and laughing hysterically. Actually, oddly enough, I feel like doing just that by the end of the class.


Maybe next Monday I will bring one to English class for use upon the skulls of those who irritate me.


Too bad there will be no one but the instructor left at the end of the class.


Well, all is well now because I have my over priced water and I am out of the traffic.


I'll stop now since the sun has now set and I still have not done my house work, having put it off for as long as I possibly can.


Goodnight world, and goodbye coffee shop.