Coffeehouse Conversation
I like to go to the coffee shop early in the morning and spend a couple of hours reading and writing.
One morning, a women in her late sixties or early seventies comes in. She tells the man who's meeting her there that she's been driving all night from Colorado. She skis, she says, but, of course, she didn't go skiing this time because it's only September.
Later, she tells him that she got caught in a speed trap on I-80 around Omaha. She was going 70 mph in a 60 mph zone. They had eight other people pulled over, she tells him, all in a line.
So, she says, "I did what I had to do."
"What was that?" the man asks her.
"I cried and told them I was deaf," she says. "And they let me off."
I am vastly entertained by this woman and the picture of her zooming through Nebraska, confounding police, skiing. Maybe, I think, she rock-climbs or jumps out of airplanes or bungee-jumps off bridges, too.
The man she's with says, "Why would they let you off because you're deaf? Maybe you just think that's why. Maybe they let everyone off."
"Maybe they let me off because I'm pretty," she says.
Comments
I wish I coulda been there.
Posted by: TM(tm) | August 20, 2002 04:46 PM
It's my very favorite coffeehouse because there are lots of private spots, _very_ comfortable chairs, and since it's often not very crowded when I'm there you can hear other people's conversations very clearly.
Posted by: debco | August 20, 2002 07:30 PM
Every time I go for a meal at the local luncheonette, I think, *I should come here and write sometimes*. I have coffeehouse envy, because I never seem to do it.
The conversation-hearing part I hadn't considered. That's a nice fringe benefit. Better than lying in the tub just far enough from the TV that you can hear the rhythm of the dialogue without understanding the words--an exercise randomly recalled from Sweet's *The Dramatist's Toolkit*. Never did that either, but it seems like it would be neat.
Posted by: TM(tm) | August 21, 2002 05:30 PM
I used to be not-good at writing dialogue. Now, I think it's one of my strengths (I have no idea whether editors or anyone else would agree with this, you understand). I do have a tendency to a) have the television on with the sound turned fairly low while I'm doing something else and b) sit and listen to other people's conversations. I wonder if it makes a difference?
I also talk to myself a lot (or the dogs; or characters in stories I'm writing) but let's not mention that....
Posted by: debco | August 21, 2002 10:07 PM