Coffee and Intellect

As you know our little Coffee House is located next to the Kissbotty County Courthouse. As a result I have met all types of humanity. Judges, attorneys, plaintiffs, defendants, reporters and general members of the public. I have met the poorest specimens of mankind (and womankind). Incidentally the poorest and raggy arsed specimens are usually the best tippers. I thought it was because they were illiterate and did not know the difference between a Washington and a Hamilton but FOTL1 who knows about these things tells me that the poor need to feel that they belong to upscale society so they tip more. Actually who cares as long as the trip from the welfare office to the tip jar is a short one. I have also met quite a few feral children on their way to, or from, the Juvenile Court, and even I find that sadly depressing.

So a few days ago a moderately elderly couple call in and settled down to breakfast. Generally smartly dressed people in before 9:00 are going to court and that always piques my jaded interest (God my own life is so dull that I should get my jollies in this way). A few gentle prompts and the story of harassment and retribution spills out and they are now off to court on a (trumped up) assault charge. This nice white haired lady then tells me that she has a concealed carry permit, but not to worry, as she isn’t carrying today. Now as a CCP bitch myself I have no problem with carrying in the shop but I know that the local legal system thinks fairly dimly of getting the ol’ 45 out inside the courthouse. These early mornings are nice inasmuch as I get the chance to pick and choose who I want to talk to and these two were mildly interesting so I hung around. So she chats away and it transpires that she was a Virginia Professional Educator (the anachronism being VaPEd) and is now a published author. All in all it was a refreshing change to pass 30 minutes in the company of someone with an IQ in triple digits.

The rest of the day drifted along in the usual tedium of mediocrity until right at closing when a guy wandered in off the street. Fortunately we were fairly quite because this guy needed some serious babysitting. It was clear that he was slipping slowly into senility and was intent on enjoying his last few brief moments of lucidity in my company. He introduced himself as Andy and asked me what he might like to eat. Normally this sort of question provokes me to suggest the desiccated cat crap sandwich with a side of Warfarin but I was quite warming to old Andy and he blew me away when he said that he used to have a good job but these days he was retired and retarded. If only all my customers were so honest. I did everything I possibly could for Andy and we actually had a good old time together. He couldn’t manage his sandwich so I suggested that we got him a box so he could take half home and he thought that this was the most novel idea ever. Within seconds he had forgotten that he couldn’t manage his sandwich and was ordering all sorts of desserts. Cynical as I am I couldn’t let this continue so after I had packed his sixth portion of pie into his togo bag I stopped him and we called it a day. We settled up and he tipped me out in a most lavish fashion. Then came the weirdest part of the afternoon. He asked for directions to a street that I had never heard of. The best that I could do was to get out my laptop and call up Google maps. This was in the days when I was still skanking wifi from whoever at 5bps so you can imagine how slowly the map loaded. For the next 5 minutes Andy kept asking over and over again what was happening. This was getting old too quickly and I could feel my toes clenching in frustration. Finally the map appeared and thank God I found his road. I showed it to him and of course he didn’t understand so I wrote down the directions. Then he said (and this is God’s honest truth), that is where I live but I can’t remember the way home. How cool is that? So I show him the door and point down the hill. “Drive that way Andy”, “which way?” DOWN THE HILL, LOOK THAT WAY” “Down the hill” YES, PLEASE, DRIVE THAT WAY”. Well finally he shambles off and I am in the clear, except he comes back. He walks straight to the boss and says “That man is really nice, he really looked after me.” Oh God is this ever going to end? Well of course it did and he was gone. About 2 nanoseconds later I dropped the ball as well as the latch on the door. Finally, peace at last.

Well I didn’t intend to blog this day but I have been agonizing over Andy getting home, I had visions of him wandering aimlessly around North Carolina remembering vaguely that I had said take the fourth turn on the left. Fortunately for my excuse for a conscience he must have made it home because today, he was back. He had of course forgotten my name but he was thrilled that I remembered his. This time he had brought his wife who seemed to have most of her marbles and was therefore somewhat less interesting. Again it was late in the afternoon so I had time to wind him up and hilarity ensued (mainly on my part). Again he couldn’t finish his lunch so we boxed it, again he ordered dessert (I stopped him after 3) and we boxed it. Again he paid and dropped far too much in the tip jar, bless him. His good lady who had clearly had enough of the Andy and Coffee Bitch double act left and as Andy walked out of the door he said “I had a bit of cake, where’s my cake” I pointed at his wife’s rapidly disappearing arse and said “she has it”. Clearly desperate for cake Andy shot out of the door and crossed the road without bothering to check for traffic.

Later I bussed the table to discover that like most pre-seniles he had forgotten that he had tipped me and left an additional large tip on the table. If I can get him in twice a week he will be putting me through college.

Yours in avarice

TCB