Coffee Shop Livin' Haikus

coffee, cream, sugar
I would rather be at home
coffee shop wifi

I can't afford 50-70 bucks a month to get fast Internet at home. My neighbor turns his WiFi signal off when he is not using it. Which means I have the option of Internet at 6-8 in the morning or 6-7 in the evening. Who can survive on 3 hours of Internet a day?!?! What is this, 5 years ago? So I come here...The Coffee Shop, Anywhereville, Northwest, USA.

sea of computers
laptops, ipods, cell phones: dead
where is an outlet

Like a $1000 clothesline accident, everyone's computer is plugged into a power outlet. Everyone is wearing headphones that are plugged into an MP3 player, which is plugged into the computer. Right hand on the mouse pad, left hand holding the cell phone up to the face. One wrong move and I yank someone's computer off the table jerking his face into his coffee, sending his phone out the window into the street, to be retrieved by the cute dog right in front of the pickup truck, with the driver that is putting a street address into his GPS while downloading the a Toby Keith song with his cell phone to the hard drive in the car stereo. Huge explosion. Slow motion shot of Bruce Willis emerging from the wreckage to claim his vengeance on whatever terrorist "John McClane" is unlucky enough to be dealing with.

really busy day
not enough tables for me
can I sit here?...................yes.

Sometimes it is inevitable. You have to sit at a big table by yourself. So, you spread all your shit around to make it look like you need the space, then kick your feet up on a chair. Somebody walks into shop and everyone looks up to see where this "person" is going to sit. It could be a completely harmless person, but no one, no one, wants to share a table. "Can I sit here?" First you look up like you weren't staring at them the whole time. Take your headphones of and look at them as if they have a harmless question about anything else.

"What did you say?"
"Can I sit here?"
"Oh Yeah, Sure!"

Then you proceed to move everything closer to you. Your bag, papers, electronic melange of shit, and your drink. You continue to clutch the drink as if the new guest is going to flip out and round house kick your drink directly onto the keyboard of your computer. Then he (it is never a she) finally sits down. Let the circus of awkwardness begin. Minutes ago your were casually looking around making eye contact with random people and doing little yoga moves in your chair. Now you are hunched over the keyboard staring only at the screen. When your phone vibrates, you move it below the table to check who it is, answering only to say, "I can't talk right now."

Anyway, hours have passed and I'm still here writing this blog, making the "thinking of the next to write" face at strangers. I'm pretty sure some asshole just unplugged my computer to plug his in.