Freaky Friday

For the last few weeks I have had pretty much the same routine on Friday afternoons. My only class for the day is evidence, which is over at noon, and although I have class saturday morning something about staying at the law school on a friday afternoon just seems inherently wrong. This past Friday as I was leaving the law school my Criminal Procedure professor from last semester actually walked up to two girls in the cafeteria area and said, "What are you doing at the law school on a Friday afternoon? Get a life!" so I feel vindicated.

My solution is to drive home and then go to the Starbucks near my house and have some coffee and read there until about six or seven o'clock. Basically I am tricking myself into thinking that I am slacking off, but really I am doing the exact same thing I would do at school, only in a Starbucks near my house. For some reason that I cannot rationally explain I seem to get a lot more reading done at starbucks than anywhere else, maybe it is the caffeine.

What's interesting is that every Friday there is this very old priest (although I think he could be episcopalian or something, he had a wedding ring on) and this other older man sit at one of the tables in Starbucks and read the papers and rant and rave about "the way things used to be." I basically do not pay too much attention to either of them, but the priest-guy is always dressed in the exact same eccentric manner: red sox, brown suede chukka boots, standard priest-style shirt, grey wool pants (a tad hot?) and a blue blazer. Priest-guy also has a foriegn sounding accent, which could possibly be french.

The Starbucks is very close to Brown so there are a fair number of people coming in who are fairly obviously students there or maybe P.C. students hanging in that neighborhood. This last friday a young looking guy came in with a kid, who I assumed to be his son, about 10-11 years old. The were speaking russian to each other and they sat down in two chairs across from me where they proceeded to immerse themselves in what I recognized from the clear celofane book jackets to be library books. The son was reading a big picture book about "The History of Arms" from which he was drawing pictures of swords and guns onto a piece of white paper. The dad was reading a book about "Great Cruising Yachts". How nice I thought to myself, before I looked back down to my Crim Law book to read more about the difference between homocide and felony murder. The father looked at me and smiled, "Cold in here," he said. I agreed. They really had the AC cranked up in this place. The father took off his sandals and sat indian style on the armchair.

A few minutes later, Priest-guy folded up his newspaper and got up from his table and began to slowly hobble towards the back of the Starbucks, past the Russian guy, his son, and me. As he got to the Russian guy he paused and faced the Russian guy as if to speak. At this point I was expecting Priest-guy to impart some sort of sagely advice to this young father in his french accent like, "How nice to see a father reading with his son! You know a family that reads together stays together," or some other feel-good psyeudo christian message. What priest-guy actually said was something entirely different. He seemed to muster up every bit of spiteful energy in his decrepit old body to say to the young guy, "You put your feet on the furniture!? You know people are eating in here? You are a dirty, dirty person. Disgusting. Disgusting." For what it is worth, the Russian guy held his ground while still being polite. He said, "Ok," but did nothing- just looked back down to his book. Priest-guy hobbled away towards the back of the Starbucks making spitting sounds, and muttering "disgusting" and "dirty."

I was sort of suprised by the whole thing. The woman sitting next to me said to the Russian guy, "He's probably just losing it." The Russian guy looked at me and said, "I was just cold!" and smiled. I replied that, in fact, it was quite cold in here. A minute passed and the Russian guy added, "I just took a shower anyways."

About five minutes or so passed and I had almost forgotten about the whole thing, when priest-guy emerged from the back of the Starbucks again. As he shuffled by us and out the door he mumbled loud enough for the entire Starbucks to hear "Dirty! Dirty! Filthy People!" followed by some spitting noises, which he repeated until he finally exited the Starbucks onto the street.

Crazy times in Providence. Meanwhile, this happened about halfway between my house and the Starbucks.

Comments

i am horrified. i am constantly sitting cross-legged and never once considered it may be offensive to others. oh well. i find it much more confortable than being appropriately seated. as for the teenage gang violence just minutes from your local starbucks--is it really safe to make a coffee-related visit to providence these days?