The Way Things Are

Dear,

Perhaps I am just a cynic, but I find no use in writing about changing the world when it is constantly changing itself.

Today I, yet again, served coffee to a hundred or two people; most of them bleary eyed and unaware of the fact that their shirts are on backwards and they are still in pajama bottoms. But these are the people I have come to love. It's funny to me my dear, how the character of a person shines (or dies) in the simple interaction of ordering a drink. There is one man, Dry Cappuccino, who has treated me with the social calling of detached politeness for the past ten months. That is, until he learned about my trip to England; after that, well, he brightened up to tell me all about his years spent in some of the same cities I went to. Sometimes people just need some common factor to bridge the gap.

Another customer, Double French Roast, asks me my name every time he orders a drink from me. He gives me a hard time because I nearly always hand him his receipt (and he doesn't want it); I just do my best to stop myself from writing my name is big black sharpie on his receipt and pinning it to his well pressed button-up. But it's okay, Double French Roast's mind is elsewhere. . . apparently all the time. I can not decide if I want to laugh, or be offended for women everywhere, when he leans across the counter and, in a hushed voice, asks me to make his wife's drink as low-calorie as possible. She usually returns it minutes after he hands it to her, asking for the real thing.

Other customers never take their eyes off their cell phones to meet mine while they order. But it doesn't bother me, we don't have to have a relationship. They just want their coffee, and there is nothing wrong with that.

But my dear, I've come to terms with this one fact; wether or not these people want it, or realize it, I am in their lives. Sometimes all a person needs is a genuine smile from someone to get through their day.

So, I'm trying to be that person. I'm trying to see the people in my life that I would normally skim over; even if they are just people I pass on my way to class everyday.

Also, I've become a fan of strawberry smoothies.

Yours Truly