Coffee and Trivia

After all the excitement of the last week not much of interest has happened so here is a collection of trivia that amused or bemused me recently.

Just on closing one Friday a guy walks in looking for lunch. Ever eager to earn a buck I looked after him and during conversation he told me he was on his way to jail. (You may remember that we are next to the Smalltown Courthouse and although I didn’t put two and two together, ergo next to the lockup). What with there being nothing much doing and being insatiably curious I started to shamelessly pump him for information. Well it turns out that he gets to work all week and then reports to the big house at 6:00 pm to be locked up until 4:30 Sunday. So he and I both work all week and at the weekend I do the Sam’s Club run, stock the shop, cut the grass, assorted yard work, house maintenance, repairs, clean the truck and so on. He gets served meals and has a good sleep. So now who is the winner here? Time for me to moon the sheriff and get some R+R weekends in the smallhouse.

We drove from Smalltown to Cultureville this weekend. There isn’t actually a road between the two so we spent an hour on one of those little bumpkin tracks that we have in Virginia. Finally an hour later we arrive to find the place closed. No market stalls, book fairs, wandering minstrels, nothing, what a rip. The only place that was open was an extremely iffy looking Pizza dump. Outside on a bench were seated a bunch of the local toughs but I had the boss in hand so we were safe. As it turned out the toughs were the staff and they turned out to be a rather jolly crowd. The restaurant was the nastiest fly blown portapotty I have ever eaten in. I don’t know how anyone could screw up a pizza so well but clearly the “chef” did. I can only assume that my accent translated my order into “Please may I have a lukewarm cat sick pizza on a stale base”. What made it more amazing was the multi-pierced waitress actually asked with a big smile “Isn’t that the greatest pizza you ever had?” That kind of left me speechless but I still left a big tip as I think she wanted me.

FOTL 1 called a few days ago. It transpires that her college has a skeet club. Now FOTL1 is a pretty damn good skeet shooter and disguises the fact by being 5 foot two and 100 pounds. When we lived up north we spent all summer blasting clays away instead of working, sweet. So when she starts talking to the club recruiter she blows him away with her experience and knowledge of 12 gauge doubled barreled (her gun of choice). Hopefully she will join and I will get a free pass. All that talk of shooting made me feel rather sad that I hadn’t shot forever so I took my favorite Benelli Legacy into the woods and blew away a few dead logs. There is nothing more satisfying than a good round of skeet and let me tell you nothing less satisfying than shooting logs. Oh well one day.

We had our first catering order recently. The client wanted muffins, cakes, Danish, cookies, coffee, iced tea, water, ice and so on. It really was a nice little order and we set it all up for them. The meeting was just 30 minutes long and it got me thinking, why can’t you people last for 30 minutes without sticking your faces in the nosebag? Then I thought of English folks. Offer your old Granny a rich tea biscuit and she might reluctantly accept. Now a rich tea biscuit is neither rich, nor tea nor a biscuit it is in fact like a piece of stale ship’s tack and to be avoided at all costs. Offer her two and she will absolutely refuse “Oh no I couldn’t possibly”. And there you have it. The English are so mean with their pleasures and perhaps this is why English old folk are so miserable. Americans seemingly regard their mouths as a pleasure center to be gratified at every opportunity and on reflection you people have got it right. Now I am off for a slice of cheesecake before lunch.

Yours in mastication
The Coffee Bitch