Starbucks Drama: Date Night at Starbucks

For the purposes of this post, we'll pretend that the cafe at Barnes & Noble (which serves Starbucks) is, in fact, an outpost of Starbucks. Even if it isn't.

I watch people constantly. One of these days, as my friends say, that's going to get me smacked upside the head. But you see so much more interesting things that way.

Do you ever "see" things - people, places, couples, groupings - that make no sense unless you assume some unsavory things? Occam's razor goes right out the window in times like this. And they always seem to occur at coffee shops - which are a breeding ground for the weird and the wonderful.

I'm reading - because I've been working on a trashtastic book that I'm too cheap to buy for months now and nursing an iced mocha. My friends are doing whatever - one has an obsession with cookbooks and will spend hours flipping through the pages of gourmet food bibles. Then *THEY* sit down.

OK. Tell the truth. What do *you* think of when you see this combo: An older man (late 60s) wearing jeans, a pullover and loafers. AND. A skinny white boy, with floppy hair, wearing slacks, jacket and tie. He had an air of terrible sophistication about him and was all in blue - baby blue shirt, navy blue pants and jacket and and piercing blue eyes. I would say late teens, early twenties. There was at least a 40-year age difference between them, at a minimum.

And there was some decidedly odd body language going on between the two of them.

They drifted around the magazine stacks and came to sit at a table. The older man selected "Powder," which is for snowboarders. Our effete young sophisticate selected a weighty tome dedicated to woodworking.

They flipped through them with a display of feigned interest that would have rivaled that of any monarch at any court function in history. Flick went the page, flick went the eye across the table. Wash, rinse, repeat.

There is almost no spoken communication at the table - just looks exchanged between the two. The older gentleman gets up to get a coffee and comes back with a frappuccino for the young kid. He toys with it.

They finally put the magazines aside and sit there for a while. The kid is sitting crosswise in the chair, with one knee on top of the other. He draws patterns on the tabletop with his finger as he gazes idly at the room. The older man sighs and finally reaches his hands out across the table.

They stare at each other. I never see them touch. I never hear them say anything.

And suddenly, they're gone.

Friends, lovers, NAMBLA, family members - I will never know.