I prefer
espresso. When I went to Starbucks this
morning, after dropping off the kids at school, I searched immediately for a
bag of their espresso beans on the dark wooden shelf off to the right, before
the queue forms. There weren’t any espresso
bags there. I began to consider
precisely what it was that “medium roast” Colombian beans might taste
like. I must have been shaking my head,
as the girl behind the counter looked over and shouted in Chinese: “Don’t
worry. We have them all the flavors
here. We haven’t unpacked them yet.”
I don’t know why we don’t have a device to grind coffee
beans, at home, but we don’t. We had one
but it was the wrong voltage and it smelled like burned wires every we used
it. “I want it the most fine
possible. Please put the knob all the
way over to the right.” “All the way to
here?” “Yes. That’s it.”
It was eight-thirty on a Monday morning. Some people were dressed for work. Others looked like they worked from home or
were newly liberated from parental obligations.
The young lady serving up the drinks as they became ready said in
Chinese: “Would you like a bag with a tray in it?” to the foreign man standing
in front of me. He was oblivious. She said it again, this time in choppy
English. Then, a third time. I looked at him. He finally noticed that woman was addressing
him. “Oh yes.”
When you purchase a bag of coffee they seem to throw in a brewed
cup of the stuff for free . I had my dopio and banged it back quickly. The woman asked me if I wanted the extra cup
and the bag of ground coffee in a holder at the bottom of the bag, just as she
had suggested for the other gentleman. I
nodded, grabbed my bag and headed back out to the car. I can’t remember what music was waiting for
me when I got there and turned on the car.
Ah, wait, I do remember.
It was “Dance” from the Motorhead’s Ace of Spades album, and it is a
very funny song to imagine Lemmy Kilmister actually acting out, as I considered
the lyrics once again, and made my way back out into traffic.
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