People Watching

My vehicle is having extensive work done on both the brakes (Yes, again. In December they just made it functional with a minimum of time and money.) and the engine. This means I am without a car today and hanging out near the mechanic shop. They have a courtesy service that would take me home but I told them I'm going to hang out in the area for a while.

I'm doing this for a few reasons. One, my living room is collapsing under piles of unfolded laundry and I don't want to look at them any more. Two, the library is near here and I will walk over there in a bit to return some CDs. Three, I have a ton of household management stuff to do: grocery listing, to do listing, schedule organization, bill organization, etc. and if I hang out at home, I'll get distracted by the laundry avalanche. (The plan is to get that stuff done while I sit here but so far, it's not getting done. Go figure.) Finally, and ultimately, I think I deserve a nice morning out to drink a caramel macchiato, listen to music and people watch.

So here I sit in the coffee and bagel shop. It's rather interesting to be here for an extended period of time, rather than running in quickly for a latte and running out again. This is a great place to people watch.

I've seen multiple business schmoozing sessions. It's easy to spot them; business casual, some glossy brochures and artificially broad smiles. The longer they sit, the wider the smiles, the harder the sell. It's interesting to listen to a salesperson on a commission wrap it up and get the powers-that-be to sign on the dotted line. I'm terrible at that kind of thing. I'm so grateful that the only thing I have to sell is a flu vaccine.

A coffee klatch sat down across from me just now. It appears to be a family: a woman, her daughters and one of her daughter's daughters. They are the sort that looks like they worked hard at looking like they worked out this morning. The baby is cute. She's having a bottle while the women have something that is not coffee. I guess that would make them a soda klatch or maybe a fruit smoothie klatch.

Before they sat down, a couple was sitting there and discussing their mutual misunderstanding of an emotionally charged subject. They both had that frustrated, tight-lipped expression that says, "Why can't you just see this the way I do?" I think she was upset at the way he handled a phone coversation with an ex. I'm glad I don't have those conversations any more.

Out the window beside me has to be the most entertaining thing I've seen all morning. It's a group of three people, two women and a man. One woman is dressed normally. The other is wearing short shorts, a button down shirt and a puffy ski vest. On her head is a massive faux fur hat with ear flaps tied up on top. The man is wearing pajama pants covered with what looks like a stenciled design of confetti. He has no shirt and his skin looks as if he hasn't worn a shirt for the better part of the last decade. He is wearing a hat that looks like it belonged to Gilligan before it washed ashore and someone sponged it with neon paints. They are all carrying 10-ft long dried reeds. I assume they are sitting outside because the man is not wearing a shirt and because the reeds probably wouldn't be welcome inside, although I'm not completely sure of that.

Well. I'm not sure anything else here could top that so I should quit while I'm ahead. I should also quit this because I have a long list of stuff to do and no one is going to do it for me.