Coffee Shop Characters

Coffee Shop Thoughts

How much can you know about a person from observing their footwear, I wonder. It looked like half the patrons of my favorite coffee shop today wore boots. Not cute little fashion boots, but the heavy kind that you would wear for serious winter hiking or certain manual labor jobs. These were on girls. It’s a sunny 60 degrees out today. The other half of my little world are wearing Birkenstocks – with white socks! OK. I’ll never run short of characters to fill my writing. I noticed that most everyone today was wearing heavy jackets – the kind you would wear to go skiing, or winter hiking in the mountains. Then a young woman walked in wearing a strappy little top that would have looked perfectly natural at the beach in August. The tattooed guy whose greyhound casually reached up to the counter to find his own doggie treat. The Birkenstocked guy who brought his own lunch in a Tupperware, along with a thermos of something to drink. He did buy a cup of coffee, so I suppose that justified his use of a table for his 2-hour conversation on his tablet. This is one of those places where everyone accepts everyone. That’s the whole point. So if someone is bothered by conversation at the next table, whether in-person or online, they’ll get up and go elsewhere before complaining. This is where you come to write, read, study, or sometimes eat or drink, in a different environment than the one you were in earlier. You know you can always move on if this one becomes not what you’re looking for. This is just what I needed today. A change of pace. Some place outside of my lovely quiet home. People. Different kinds of people. Lots of character possibilities. My latte is finished. Time to go elsewhere, loaded up with inspiration.