Smile-breaks
Noises - Road trip next week
I'm sitting at a little round table in the corner of Starbucks. Having a black iced tea and a crunchy crumbly chocolate chip cookie, my trusty computer waiting patiently for me to finish. Well, trusty as long as it doesn't quit on me, catch a virus or upgrade behind my back and change everything I'm used to. Trusty? Maybe. . .
I have to try really hard to concentrate. A table away from me two gentlemen—make that two guys—are having a one-way conversation. You know how that goes: one guy talking nonstop; the other guy just sitting there, an occasional nod of his head. I'm trying not to hear what they're—he's—saying but you know how those loud talkers are: they talk like you're deaf. Starbucks' piped-in music is competing with him, rather unsuccessfully I'd say, and the baristas are shuttling ice out of the bin, taking orders and chatting with each other over the sound of car engines revving up and tooling around outside.
"Tooling around?" Haven't heard that in years!
I want to leave, but I have a good spot here and I have a day off and nowhere else to go where I can play with Smile-breaks on my computer, so here I am. Stuck.
Nope. Not stuck. I have two legs and car keys and the loud orator is generously giving forth with the "f" word. I'm gone.
That was then; this is now. Different Starbucks, different day. Found a Starbucks in Mesquite, Nevada. Long way to go to find a Starbucks. Naw. . . it's a month later and I'm on vacation. Mesquite is quite something! I was just passing through on my way to Utah but I came back the next day to finish my vacation here and ended up this afternoon at Starbucks.
No self-proclaimed orators here. Kids being kids, kind'a loud, but happy—that's what matters, right? Music's loud but okay. Barista's are swapping info cheerfully. All's good.
Now I'm back home, after my fun vacation, sitting at another Starbucks, finishing up the wrong Smile-breaks. Pretty much the same noises here as at the Starbucks in Mesquite. But last week I hinted that I'd tell you about my road trip and I've been distracted by finding this one—unfinished—in the file. I couldn't just leave it there. I started it in March, sitting at—you guessed it—Starbucks. I'll send this one off and tell you about my road trip next time. I'll even leave out the part about Starbucks as I'm sure you've had enough of that by now.
But do remind me to tell you about Butch Cassidy and pickleball and the Donkey History Museum and the Crazy Cow Café and. . .
To be continued -