She-Wolf and Man-Child: Blowing Smoke Up Daddy's Cafe Americano

Dilettante children amuse me greatly, mostly because I think longingly of the day when their precious mumsies and daddies WON'T be there to help them pussyfoot their $600 Gucci-clad feet out of whatever jam they've gotten themselves into. Or their kids. Someone, somewhere is going to have to pay those wages of sin. And let me tell you, by the time that particular bill comes due, Lady Karma is going to add one hell of a mandatory tip.

Anyway. I'm chillaxing at the local Starbucks and watching this scene play out on the other side of the plate glass window. I'm in the comfy chair on the other side (INSIDE), because I have zero desire to have cigarette smoke blown into my hair by bored-as-hell teenagers and listen to their prattle. Cicadas chirping would make more sense. And I hate cicadas.

I was trapped for two weeks in Columbia, Missouri, for training on my internship during the confluence of the 13-year and the 17-year cycles and there was a horde, no, a Biblical bloody PLAGUE of cicadas. They were in my hair. They were in my food. They were in EV-ER-Y-THING! They dive-bombed us from the trees. They dive-bombed us from the lamp posts. They jumped from the ground. They attacked at every turn. It wasn't safe to go out at night. They came, from miles around, to congregate, to seek out every source of light, to do the cicada horizontal limbo in as many cicada positions as it was possible. And the shrieking, piercing, whine. With God as my witness, I hope never to hear that sound again. Put me in a room full of small children howling at full blast. And I'd rather have that than the cicadas. And we ALL know how I "dislike" small children.


Back to the story.

Nevertheless, I can follow this entire conversation like I'm sitting at the table listening to them.

There's a girl. Isn't there always? And a boy. Isn't there always? They're both very, very Caucasian. Their money is so old it was probably bred from Roman coins in the time of the pharaohs.


She-Wolf is wearing some sort of tan corduroys with black high-heel boots on. Her top is something pink and low, low cut. ("Apple-bottom jeans, boots with fur...." I love T-Pain)There's low-cut, and then there's this thing that could probably serve as the mascot for a T-Pain video or three. This cut of this falls somewhere between bottom of the boob and the navel. It is trimmed in exceedingly tacky gold lace and doesn't really match her coloring. I thought rich people had OTHER people picking out their clothes for them?

Over this, she's wearing a brown (yes, brown) cardigan. I guess the Salvation Army look is in this season. The outfit just doesn't go together. The colors seem OK, but the fabrics and the overall "look" just don't work. Like a "Project Runway" experiment gone bad. You just know Tim Gunn is gonna come and go "There's a whole lotta look going on here." And her face looks like the surface of the moon. Cheap make-up. Maybe she's undercover?

Man-Child is wearing what looks like Chuck Taylors, except that they give every appearance of being made out of leather instead of cloth. I didn't even know they made such things. His jeans have some fancy designer name stamped on the right rear pocket, but I can't read it. They probably cost more than my car payment. Top this off with a plain white tee ("Hey There, Delilah") and a black Ralph Lauren long-sleeve pullover. And Gucci sunglasses. I can see that logo a mile away.

They're standing - because they're too good to sit on the perfectly good Starbucks wrought-iron chairs, obviously. They might catch something.

She-Wolf is sucking on a frappuccino. (Because obviously, with her bad complexion, what she needs is more ruinous sugar.) Man-child is continuously cocking his wrist back and forth in a suspiciously swishy way, but you never can tell these days.

He's describing something. He gets more animated. He's gesturing. He waves his arms. He's talking about something that doesn't really matter, because he keeps making dismissive motions. Kids these days. Nothing really matters. She starts braying and her mouth flies open. Flecks of spittle and frappuccino fly out.

Man-Child is a study of motion. He practically dances in place. He's never still. He hops from one foot to the other, spins on the chair, jogs in place and does a little spin that makes his shirt tails fly up.

She-Wolf is a languid study of lying in wait. She lounges on the rail, gripping her frappuccino, listening to him talk and studying his moves. Her eyes move from side to side, scouring the terrain for prey. She's on the prowl, for what she doesn't know, but she wants, she needs, she will have. Her laughter comes easily but falsely. You can see it in her cackle, the way her eyes never truly change, the way her mouth moves but her face remains the same.

She-Wolf decides to smoke. She's an inexperienced smoker, that much is apparent from her first puff, which releases acres of thin white smoke into the air. No long-time nico-freak would waste such valuable air on blowing smoke that never got to your lungs.

Worse, she's just blowing smoke all over the kids sitting at the table next to them. Seriously. She could knock out a beehive with the amount of smoke she's putting out. Queen bees would wilt. Hives would fall. Heck, the entire Roman empire would fall. Gibbon could write a few volumes on her alone.

Inhale. Suck it in. Suck. Suck. Suck. MY GOD. She can inhale.  Then just blow it out. She can't smoke, as in actually smoke, she's just inhaling into her mouth and blowing it back out. Pretending to smoke to look cool. Kids these days.

Man-Child dances around some more. He's telling something funny, because he gets really animated and is standing up on one of the chairs while he talks and starts whipping his arms around. She-Wolf is looking hungrily at his abs and laughing and blowing smoke and sucking down her frappuccino.

The kids next to her get tired of the smoke blowing directly in to their faces and come to join the conversation. One of them is on crutches. They keep trying to maneuver to avoid the smoke billowing out of She-Wolf. She's producing smoke like a factory. Puff. Puff. ... the magic dragon, lived by the sea... Where was I?

So, not only is She-Wolf blowing smoke into this kid's face, she's destroying his lungs into addition to him having a bum leg. Loverly.

Man-Child continues to dance around. I honestly wonder if maybe he has ADD from being away from his X-Box for too long? He doesn't look like he even know how to be still.

Oh. The party starts to break up. She-Wolf heads off one way with the group that she was previously blowing smoke onto. Maybe they're headed to a cleaners?

Man-Child grabs a watered-down frappuccino off a table where it has been for the last half-hour, sucks it down and dusts it into the trash without even hitting the rim. Ahhh. Basketball. Doesn't look tall enough though.

And then he gets into a brand spanking new black 2009 BMW and peels out of the parking lot. Kids these days.