Ben (mm_ben) wrote in morningstar_mnr, @ 2009-05-25 23:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | andras, ben, emma, jimmy |
Ben at the Mocha, Monday Evening OTA/MW
Ben thanked the barista for his small coffee, the only drink on the menu that he recognized and could pronounce with confidence. After grabbing as much creamer and sugar as his hand could clutch, he scanned the coffee shop for a place to sit. Coffee houses were never his thing. They were too often populated by snobby rich people or equally snobby artists with their expensive lattes and Apple laptops giving dirty looks to anyone who made a noise and dared to interrupt the typing of their ground-breaking novel. This place looked okay, though. Not many people were around, probably because it was night time and the post-work crowd had already left.
He didn't know the etiquette for a coffee house. Was he allowed to sit at a table if he didn't order one of those severely overpriced cake or biscotti things? Was he allowed to sit at one of the cool tall tables, or were those reserved for like, VIP coffee drinkers? And why did they make tables that tall, anyway? There weren't any velvet ropes or place cards on any of the tables, though, so Ben made his way to one of the taller tables and hopped up on the chair.
This is cool, he thought, setting his small coffee down. I wonder why everyone doesn't sit at the tall tables. It was like he could look down and watch everyone in the room.
Getting over the novelty of sitting in a really tall chair, Ben proceeded to empty four creamers into his cup, only stopping because it started to overflow. Wondering vaguely if he'd put too much, he moved on to shaking packets of sugar into the coffee. After the ninth packet, he decided it was probably enough and took the first sip.
"Jesus Christ," he spat the concoction onto the small mountain of empty creamer cups and sugar wrappers on the table in front of him, causing them to blow off the table and land on the neatly polished floor. The barista behind the counter glared at him, and Ben sheepishly bent over to pick up his litter. It was then when he realized why no one sat on the tall chairs. If you dropped something, it was too far away to just retrieve without getting up. The barista continued to give him a look, so he grudgingly slipped from the chair to gather the trash. Balls, now he knew why he never dared to walk into a snooty coffee place before.
Ben pushed his mutant radioactive sludge coffee away to the other end of the table and pulled a napkin closer to him. So, things he had to do by the end of the week. He pulled out a pen and started to make a list.
"Register for school," he murmured out loud. "Register for placement exams, move the rest of my junk out of the car and into the apartment, pick up my Elvis costume for the waiter job..."
He felt like he was forgetting something.