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A day that had begun early with me boarding a urine-reeking bus, with no obvious culprit on the lower deck (I suspect the guilty party had already disembarked but lived on in fragrance) was still yet to catch fire some eight hours later.
I’d boarded that first bus of the day just behind a girl wearing a huge scarf. As un-spring like as the weather still is, seeing someone sporting a scarf as big as this at the end of March was akin to someone wishing you a ‘Happy New Year’ in late January.
It’s now 16:32hrs on this very unproductive Friday.
I managed to get Flare’s attention and asked for another decaf latte. Once again I got that physio-to-bench substitution gesture. Hopefully this time he remembers. If I knew him well enough to make light of him, one day I would say, “Man, you’re forgetful.”
If Upright and Flare are a couple, I hope at some point Upright might raise this with him at home. Flare, while no doubt knowing my name, has sought to make no attempt to make this official. Maybe he wants a formal exchange of names? Maybe he won’t address me by my name unless I go first?
This café duality leaves me feeling a bit like a bigamist. I wonder what THE café would make of things if they knew I was holed up in this place. Upright meantime brings over my second latte at 16:35hrs. A 3-minute turnaround from ordering to delivering is a real achievement in this place, an improvement on yesterday’s 22 minutes. This second latte, thankfully, has a much smaller head than the first.
There is a dog at the next table and everyone’s pretty much stroking it, staff and customers. Thankfully I’m distracted from this hygiene fail carousel by my aunt. She asks me if the clocks change this weekend. I’d completely forgotten. I check online while I still have her on the phone. Inevitably, she cuts me off and I have to call her back. This always happens.
“The clocks go forward at 1am on Sunday.”
“Should I put them forward now?” My aunt asks.
Even I don’t do this. I usually change them on the Saturday afternoon just to get it out of the way but it does always make for a long early spring Saturday. I say spring, but I actually postponed today’s already late run until tomorrow because it’s absolutely chucking it down right now.
“Just wait until tomorrow,” I say.
Behind me, ‘Don’, an elderly gentlemen who’s always talking about seeing Elvis live twice ‘back in the day’, shouts ‘GREAT COFFEE’ in the direction of the counter. Upright takes the compliment and hollers back.
“Thank you, Don.”
I’m not impressed with Don. He’s putting the introverts here under pressure to also vocalise their coffee plaudits.
Upright had earlier bought a glass of iced water over as an accompaniment to the coffee. This is a carryover from the Double Denim era. The back-up café, since his departure, now feels like more of an ensemble cast with the various staff escaping the departed Double Denim’s enormous ego. They are now getting the chance to shine.
I leave with a 25 tip hidden in my hand. Like George Costanza, I want the tip to be noted but am aware it’s the classic tight writer’s tip. I’ve got a 20p piece and a 5p. I’m trying to work out if by flicking the 5p hard through the money box on the counter, I can somehow generate the audio of a heavier coin drop to leave them mistakenly impressed by my generosity. I fail on this front. The 5p drops into the moneybox sounding like what it is. A 5p. Meantime, Upright, not for the first time, incorporates a tip into my card charge, which never impresses me. I’ll need to rethink my tipping strategy.
It’s been a weird week.
A quiet one.
It was a good decision not to chase gigs other than the single one I had on Tuesday.
Clearly I needed the rest.
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