September 22, 2000

Clomp clomp clomp. In walks 3-inch platform Dr. Scholl's. Black hip-hugging bell bottoms. Santa Cruz muscle-T. Clomp clomp clomp. Backwards baseball cap. Cleopatra eyeliner. Seven tons of attitude. Clomp clomp clomp.

I am in a coffee shop called Des Moines, which I have been known to refer to as Iowa, because that is how my mind works. I am nursing a small coffee and reading about the Patrick Ewing trade that I have mixed yet ultimately hopeful feelings about. I am trying to wind down from a very taxing day of unproductivity. Clomp clomp clomp.

"Is this your paper?" Clomp clomp clomp asks me seconds after I push the Post a few inches to my left and start digging around in my defective backpack for my notebook. I have not for a second been unaware of clomp clomp clomp's presence since she clomped clomped clomped through the door. Her shoes are loud. Her breath is loud. Everything about her is so, so loud. I hate her on sight.

It wasn't my paper -- it was the café's -- but that is so very much beside the point. The paper was on my table -- the table I had effectively rented for an unlimited amount of time by virtue of my coffee purchase. The paper was still warm from where my arm had lain across it as I tried to figure out just exactly who got the best deal in basketball land. No, technically the paper was not mine. Also, technically, ketchup is a vegetable.

"Do you mind if I take a quick look at it?" Clomp clomp clomp. Just take it and get away from me. Take it and sit down. Take it and stop clomp clomp clomping around the damn place. Everyone has seen you. You have been noted. Attention has been paid. Go go go away.

So she takes it, and I glare at her feet. Stupid, stupid shoes. I hope she has a blister. I hope it is fresh and red and tender. I hope she has two.

Clomp clomp clomp. She goes to the counter, the newspaper that isn't mine rolled under her arm, and asks for a skim latte. Figures. I'm not trying to hear her, it just happens. The girl is loud.

She gets her drink and goes over to the front corner of the room where the couches are. The couches that I avoided because there was a girl with her books spread out, clearly studying, clearly wanting to be alone. And I wanted to be alone, too. No forced smiling at strangers. No excuse me, do you minds. No clomp clomp. Until.

"Do you mind if I share this corner with you?" Clomp. Now, what is this mousy little thing whose hair looks like it lost a very nasty argument with a Flobee supposed to say to Ms. Badass Backwards Baseball Cap? Just exactly what? She smiles, nods, and moves her books.

Clomp settles in. Clomp gets unsettled. Clomp comes back over to me, and my hackles instinctively raise. What does she want now? She has my paper. I have nothing left.

She is standing inches away, but I refuse to look up. I just keep staring at those shoes. After a few minutes of waiting for her to ask if I mind something that I most surely do, my curiosity gets the better of me and I look up. She's looking behind me, at the wall of free postcards. Oh. Still, she is in my space. My personal space. Continuing to hate.

Hovering for two eternities, she is. Hover hover has replaced clomp clomp. The postcards are not that fascinating. They are advertising Mount Gay Rum. They are advertising Colgate toothpaste. They are advertising the School of Practical Philosophy on 79th St. Hover hover. My eyes shoot tiny drunk lumberjacks to hack away at her ankles, but she does not notice.

Finally, she grabs a stack of postcards touting ABC's new fall lineup (how hot! How edgy!) and clomp clomp clomps back to the couch she has commandeered. The mousy girl is now gone. She got out while the getting was good. Me, I stayed around for a while, but I was all cranked out. Yahtzee wasn't helping. Mission of Burma seeping though the speakers wasn't helping. Writing "die bitch die" in concentric circles, with hearts dotting the I's, wasn't helping. (Well, okay, that helped a little.)

And so, I went home.

Clomp clomp clomp.

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