I was at my regular coffee house in need of a cup of the
wakeful. Two blonde skinny women
in expensive yoga clothes were ahead of me in the line. (Don’t jump ahead. Stay together, People!) Their children sat
on the stumpy chairs that are too small for adults and give one the sense of balancing
on a defective Lego.™ The women
debated whether to have a short or small decaf, a poppy seed mini muffin or a
cranberry mini scone. The children
sagged, burdened with the knowledge that this decision merits a ten-minute
caucus. I watched in wonder. Had they no sense, the adults, that
there were other people in line this workday morning, and that perhaps they
might move the proceedings along?
In short, did they have as much sense as their children? No. Was their slowness due to smugness or stupidity? Or, perhaps it is normal for people to
stare at pastry, as Galileo no doubt gazed upon the phases of Venus. The eye wants to linger upon the
beautiful and the sublime.
The young man behind the counter (Clerk? Barista? Clarista?) was sweetly patient and
asked them what they would like to order.
Blonde #1 said: Oh! I love your accent. Where are you from?
(Ah. Stupidity. Mystery solved.)
The young man said quietly and wearily: London. East.
London! East! She squeaked and I sighed because I knew
what came next.
Clarista knew the script, too: Have you been to London?
And now it was Blonde #1’s time to shine: Yes. I lived in London.
You did?
Yes, I lived there when I was in college.
My Friends, I object. I object to this entire exchange.
First, no, you did not live in London when you were in
college. You did not live in the
place if you did not have to order the electricity and the gas service, identify
new vermin, or learn how to operate strange and flammable appliances. You were put up in London. Or, London put up with you. You crashed on London’s couch. And London was cool with that for a
while, until the day London got tired of you because you are a lightweight and a weepy drunk. London kicked you in the ribs at six
a.m., gave you a mug of orange juice and two aspirins and said that if you are
going to vomit in the kitchen sink, then you are going to wash the dishes. And turn off that Smith’s disc.
Second, it is impossible to say, “I love your accent” without
sounding like a fool. I grew up in
earshot of an English accent. I
must have heard an American say, “I love your accent” every week of my life. No
one has ever replied, “Oh, thank you” and meant it. I can tell you, from an insider’s perspective, that the
possessor of that nightingale song never respects the person who tells her that
they love her accent. Never. Why? Because while your observation of and
compliment of the accent is your attempt to signal to its Golden Source that
you recognize that she comes from parts elsewhere and that you approve of this
elsewhere, that you think that elsewhere is a bit better than here, that people
from that elsewhere, the same elsewhere where the Dulcet Mouthpiece is from,
are more polite and intelligent, while you beam in pride of your own worldliness,
this person who acquired her speech by the regular accidents of birth,
geography and education, thinks you are a sucker
and a rube who doesn’t know a Cockney from a Geordie from a toff. You would say, “I love your accent” to
Amy Winehouse, Trevor Howard, or Dame Edna and not know the difference.
Blonde #1 and Blonde #2 smiled glassily at London! East!
and adopted the skinny girl, scissor stance. You have seen it.
The boot clad legs, crossed tightly, feet planted parallel. The intended goal of this posture is to
emphasize one’s thinness, and therefore dominance, over nearby females, but it smacks
of anxiety and incontinence. The
last time I stood with my legs crossed so tightly, I was four years old and I
was trying not to wet my underpants.
Also, it is not a stable stance.
Come on, you say.
Admit it: You are jealous of their blondness and their thinness. You are harping on these qualities an
awful lot, aren’t you? You envy
the hand life has dealt them. You want
the proper leisure to give pastry the consideration that it deserves. You can’t imagine what it must be like
to be so confident that your opinion on all topics would be received with
anything other than gratitude. You
envy people who can survive on decaf. If these two are so vacuous, so worthy of mockery, why do
they bother you so much? Move on
with your day and forget about them.
Friend, you raise a good point. I can’t let every silly
person interrupt my thoughts and consume precious real estate in my brain. I should take deep breaths, chant
mantras, draw zentangles and move on.
I will tell you why I was bothered. Because as I considered what it meant
to “live in,” a place, as I remembered my mother’s disgust every time she
received a compliment about her accent because, to her, she wasn’t English, she
was American and wanted to be recognized as an American citizen, not as a
British subject, as I tried to recall the planets Galileo observed and the
proper spelling of “Geordie,” I was still in the goddamn line waiting for my
coffee.
Blonde #1 and Blonde #2 continued to occupy the
front. Their blockade was
impressive, but I was not the only casualty of their privileged bitchery. On the other side of the café, there
was a man and his dog. The man
stood patiently and waited to get past them. The dog, tired of his master’s solicitousness and possessed
with more sense than all of the humans in the room, pushed past Blonde #2 with
a good whap with his back flank that almost knocked her over, to the delight of
the children. How fierce are you really
when a Scottie can take you out? East London leaned around the counter
to ask me what I would like.
I ordered a medium latte, whole milk, please, and adopted
a military “at ease” stance, that emphasized my width and mass. I like to think it a solid, authoritative
stance, a stance that says, “In the event of famine, I will last for years.”
The Blondes were dazed at the abrupt interruption of
Life. They blinked at each other,
then at me, then at the line that had formed behind me and out the door. They were surprised by our presence, as
if we had risen from the floorboards like ghosts. They sat down and the children stared
into their hot chocolate and gave us the nod: “Yes, it’s over now. We will make note of your patience in
therapy this week.”
And then I moved on with my day.
