Drizzle Coffee Shop

Drizzle falls outside the coffee shop. I am drinking the house drip and it’s burned to a crisp. I don’t mind the burn.

I love summer drizzle. More of it. Summer drizzle retards economic growth on the Oregon Coast.

It’s early morning. Cheap Trick plays on satellite ready. I’ll never understand why these locally owned coffee joints don’t play local radio stations. I suppose the ads are just too annoying, but it feels like they should be helping out one another. I still believe in local radio stations and newspapers. They are holding on, somehow.

I sit at a window table with a grand view of Highway 101 and watch the ongoing diaspora of old RVS, battered bicycles, shot cars and ragged men and women on foot. Where are we going as a country? Is anyone asking that question? I am.

Drizzle wets the sculpture of the town’s high school mascot that’s standing across the street. I bet a million dogs have whizzed on it. He’s wearing a football helmet.

Yes, football season is upon us. I am indifferent. Others are ecstatic. They now have their social lives scheduled for the next four months.

Drizzle is turning to rain. I am watching the transformation. Is there a metaphor in there?

A woman near me is reading Trivial Pursuit cards she pulled from the shop’s library. Our eyes meet and she says, “It’s better than playing on my phone.” Yes. We talk for few minutes about the value of trivia and how it sometimes comes in handy. It’s the first interesting conversation I’ve had in a coffee whop in a long time. They are so difficult to initiate these days. They are disappearing as a cultural pastime. I lament that.

I have a big day ahead of me. This burned coffee will set me up well to handle some new tasks and new personalities.