Grunting Granny and the Eager Entrepreneur

I will be the first to admit that I don't have a special talent for this stuff - by that I mean something like super hearing, X-ray vision or stealth.

I basically just nosy. I like to watch people, listen to people and see what the heck they're doing. Everybody else's business is way more interesting than the gaping void of nothingness that's going on my life. You can stumble upon all sorts of things if you keep your head down, eyes open and ears perked for drama.

I had to drive northward for work Wednesday and left work to fight traffic during rush hour (yes, I am qualified to be in Mensa. Why do you ask?). I know, cue the excitement. I stopped off at fairly large Starbucks stuck in an outparcel in a big strip mall - which is across the parking lot from a Super Target with a Starbucks inside it and across the *SAME* parking lot from a Barnes & Noble that's SERVING Starbucks coffee. I don't understand either. I don't get paid for city planning. Someone should pay me for *something* though.

Anyway. I get my usual and a pastry - because I'm starving and don't know that I'll have time to eat before my event. This is when I experience the guided tour of the barista's pockets. I swear the girl had never heard of a purse. Skinny jeans and she had enough gear to survive in the wild for six days. Maybe she just liked having everything handy - but I remember when I worked retail - I hated having everything slamming around in my pockets all day - and it was just one more ounce of weight you had to carry.

Anyway. On with the story.

I'm sitting on one of the couches - this was a 2004-2006 Starbucks maybe? It has that nuevo-modern furniture in the curves and the blue and orange color palette. Not the wood from the older stores or the cheap and tacky-looking plastic from the ultra-modern stores that opened up in the past two years. None of those mod prints and all. Don't get me wrong, I like the store. I like the colors. I like the vibe, and I've hung out there before. Plus, the baristas are most definitely cut from that generic coffee-slinger/alterna-hippie mode with interesting tattoos, piercings and slightly kooky fashions that make for a decent coffeehouse vibe.

Anywhozits. Where was I? Besides from admiring the help?

Sitting on a nice couch enjoying my venti iced mocha and eating my old-fashioned donut. My radar goes off and I start to pick up one *those* conversations.

Let me back up a bit. I know. I'm a terrible storyteller. I would never last in the "Arabian Nights."

When I was sitting down on the plush fake pleather couch, I saw a dude getting a laptop out of a car in the parking lot. No big deal, right? People park in a Starbucks with laptops all the time. He looked like a student type, average height, average build, kind of sandy-ish red hair, wearing a faded blue and white striped polo shirt, khaki shorts and an older, rather battered Windows laptop. Not memorable at all, so I went back to my drink, my donut and my text messaging about the barista's pocket full of goodness and dismissed him.

Then he started talking. Not memorable turned out to have been my first mistake.

At first, I thought he was talking on the phone, because I didn't see anyone come in with him. As I later found out, this proved to be my second mistake.

But before we get there, let's cover Stripey Polo's FASCINATING conversation.

As near as I can tell, what I assumed to be a student-type is/was/might be a real estate speculator in disguise. As near as I could get down, because I was trying to take notes in the notes application on my phone, this is the conversation. I drifted into it halfway when the word "stove" came up, because he got really animated and was practically yelling at that point. And it went on for a while. The MUMBLES: are the pauses in the conversation for the other party, the one I thought was on the phone for most of this little encounter.

STRIPEY POLO: ".....but yeah we can get right into there tonight with that stove." "YES. I SAID I JUST NEED TO FIND A STOVE." *This was the part where he got militant and yelled."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "Yeah. I dunno. I said I dunno. We need a used one if we're gonna get in there tonight. I don't got no more leads."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "Well what about ....." and I couldn't hear this at all.
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "There's a used place around here somewhere. We gotta go there and get that stove. We gotta get in there tonight."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)

STRIPEY POLO:"Yeah, I know. I'm tough. I gotta do it all. What are you gonna do?" "You gotta hustle in this business. You gotta keep moving."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "What are we doing tomorrow? What about that other unit? What do we need to do in there? I thought you were gonna do it?"
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "I don't know."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "Well, I mean somebody gotta go in there and clean it up before they get here. It needs new (garble)."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)

STRIPEY POLO: "Yeah, yeah, I know, right! Let's do that. We can go down and get some siding and fix it tomorrow."
MUMBLES: (still dead silence; not a sound, not a peep)

Keep in mind that I can *HEAR* but not see the kid through all of this. There's one of those big racks of coffee mugs and bags of ground coffee that Starbucks is so fond of between me & him.

STRIPEY POLO: "Hey, what do you think about going out to the liquidation center and getting stuff?" "We could get a lot of good deals on plumbing and fix that bathroom."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "Well, you wanted to do that last week and never did."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)
STRIPEY POLO: "There's that place down the road too."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)

STRIPEY POLO: "Yeah. Do you have the number? We can call them and see if they have it. They said they had it. We need it." *No idea what it is. Might have been code for drugs.*
MUMBLES: (dead silence)


STRIPEY POLO: "Hey, do you have the money? We gotta get the money to go get the stove. We gotta get that stove tonight. We gotta get it. It's gonna be nice, that stove."
MUMBLES: (dead silence)


STRIPEY POLO: "Yeah. That's gonna be a good stove."

At this point, I was done with the donut and felt the call of nature. I threaded my way back to the loo and did my business. Upon exiting, I finally got a full-frontal look at who Stripey Polo had been talking to - and got the shock of my life.

An old decrepit crone with wrinkles an inch thick in her skin and eyes sunk deep into her skull. She was slumped into the chair in a way that I didn't even KNOW you *could* slump into some of those rigid modern plastic numbers at a Starbucks. Picture Irene Ryan from "The Beverly Hillbillies" and add about 30 years onto that, minus the good living and plus a few night spent in dive bars and fleabag motels with needles jammed into her arms. That was this old lady.

And Stripey Polo was *STILL* going on about stoves and counters and drywall and whatnot. She sat there listening, taking it all in with a look at that said pretty much nothing at all. It was either a blissed out coma or the must supreme case of indifference I've ever seen in a human being. Maybe she was just waiting for him to get together the cash to score some dope - although I have my doubts about anyone dumb enough to try to put together a deal inside a Starbucks.

Days later, I still can't figure it out. Who were they and what were they doing together? It was just the most unlikely odd couple you could have imagined. Was he some sort of speculator or real estate guru - the truth of which I could just barely believe. In which case - who the heck was she? Never made a sound. Didn't look like the lights were on - nor had they been on for a long time.

Lacking anything else, I'm tempted to go with random dopers - and they were trying to sell scrap somewhere - although I'm positive that they would have already pawned the laptop of they were desperate for something. I just don't get it. I just don't get it at ALL.

High drama at the Starbucks. High drama indeed.