Monday at Starbucks

For the last several months, I've been an employee of the US Census. As a Crew Lead, I sit each day in one location while the team members arrive and hand in their completed forms and time sheets. It's paperwork at it's bureaucratic finest. Our team chose to meet at Starbucks, which means for 5-7 hours a day, 7 days a week, for months on end, I am in a coffee shop in the middle of suburbia.

This is where the fun begins.

People say they're people watchers all the time, but I am subjected to people watching on a continuous basis. My meetings take all of 15 minutes at worst so there's plenty of down time to just look at the litany of humanity that imbibes in the dark liquid therapy of this Seattle arm of Satan.

Today, at the extended table directly in front of me, are a gaggle of housewives. The Real Housewives of Suburban DFW. They have various numbers of children each with them and they all have casual dress as their modus operandi in the clothing department. They talk, non-stop, about whatever crosses their minds. From childcare to husbands to schools to shopping to gossip. The only levity for me is that one of them is wearing an outfit that about 50% of the time has her left breast exposed. She's wearing a bra, but not a good one, so there it is in all of it's...well...exposure. I have determined that they're not real. The ROCK on her finger indicates that she probably hasn't worked in quite some time. Tan, regular gym in shape, and whatever. She's the only one who dressed for "public viewing". The rest look like they rolled in here amidst a day of errands and casual destinations.

To their left is the self-made-entrepreneur guy. He's here pretty regularly, always on the phone, and always with his laptop open. Spiked, frosted hair, he's meeting with a woman who looks uncomfortable. While he has hand sewn moccasin like shoes, designer jeans, a peach striped Gap style button down shirt, and his sunglasses pushed atop the torturous terrain of his scalp, SHE is in casual pumps, black jeans, and ??? a white denim jacket. She's around her late 40's with an unflattering hair style. Now, the dichotomy between their presence is profound, but he's in SALES mode. From what I've been able to make out, he's trying to talk her into joining his pyramid sales scheme for wireless service.

He's all smiles. She's all "please, I want to believe but you're making me feel like I'm being slimed." Across her back, for quite some time now, have been 2-3 flies. They mill around and hop to and fro, all with her quite unaware. Equally, she is not alert to the way her top has lifted and her bottoms dropped on her backside, letting us know that she has chosen a common cotton solution to her more private needs.

Over in the corner is a couple. Late 30's, tan, and very much in love. I'm not sure why they're still sitting here...unless it's an affair. At least one of them has a very large leather "satchel" type thing with them. Clothes spill out of the top of it, what look like boxer shorts. This may be the last day of a long weekend meet-up between two lovers. He's about to go. He looks calm, she looks completely enamored. Both of her hands holding one of his, her head tilted sideways, a constant small smile on her face, and a look in her eyes that is simultaneously taking him in and replaying her favorite parts of previous evenings.

Behind the cackling hens resides the lone man in his 60's. He's retired and just came in for some coffee and a chance to be out of the house. It's obvious that he's people watching, but not for some deeper content, he just hasn't picked up the paper or put a computer in front of him and he's absorbing the visual and audio stimuli that isn't provided by endless hours of MSNBC humming in the back ground, like home.

The staff here seems to not have fixed schedules. I have no idea which ones will be around when I arrive each day. One just came back from a family issue, so while she's "new" to me, she's been here quite some time apparently. Her hair is a bird's nest of haste and lack of concern. Frumpy, she wears ill fitting clothes that don't quite cling to her but don't leave anything to the imagination about the lack of care she's given to her physique over the years. She's loud and has a genuine fake smile that radiates. It reminds me of George C. Scott.

The more youthful attendees of the bean consumers needs are gathered sporadically between customers discussing a plethora of things...but most concern men and their intolerability.

Me? I had my first 4 appointments all show up early, so I have about an hour to kill. I don't dress for this, with just shoes, denim shorts, and a well worn polo style shirt as my armor against the world. I find these things around me to be a lulling comfort against the onslaught of things going through my head. The last couple of days have been full of incredible highs and some uncomfortable challenges. My ability to be able to count on things as solid has never been more tenuous, as I have a major job interview tomorrow, a week of observation to see how the woman I've been dating for the last two months contours to a conversation we had yesterday that made some significant changes to what was becoming "normal" but intruding on our ability to assess us, and the usual balance of alone time, friends, money, pet ownership, creativity, etc. Actually, I'm watching me too. My band has the week off, so no outlet of volume and angst and whatever to let the boiling settle. I'm not sure if I'll get to see the woman at all this week (dead silence since our talk yesterday). And I've got nothing but tomorrow morning to focus on and it's tough when the rest is a little fuzzy and not something you can plant my foot on and lift.

I wonder if the people around me have been able to come to the correct conclusion about me.

If this were a movie, I suspect I'd be the guy with, they think, the diabolical plan to inflict revenge upon the huddled sleeping masses. Instead, I'm just going to drink my ice water, keep my mouth shut, and let my eyes and ears act as radar around me for whatever little nuggets of truth I can find in this world.

Wish me luck.