Maybe We’re All Super Troupers

It’s an odd day. The air and the thermometer don’t seem to agree about the temperature. It feels appropriate yet hilarious that the cafe is currently uncharacteristically blaring ABBA’s “Super Trouper”. Someone just lowered the volume but kept the song on. This makes me smile. When I arrived at the cafe I couldn’t find a table downstairs. There were two upstairs. One was near an older gentleman. I put my book on that table so no one else would take it when I went downstairs to order my coffee. I noticed a book on his table I had read and enjoyed, and smiled at the book. He thought I was smiling at him. He started to exude heavy wafts of old guy come-on energy. I may have been misreading him, but I wasn’t willing to take the chance. When I came back upstairs after ordering my coffee I moved to the table a bit further away from him. I hoped he wouldn’t take offense. The further table also had better light. The woman at the table behind me asked me with an undertone of dread, “There are flashing lights in here, right?” I looked up and realized that the two-bladed, space-age-like fans on the ceiling of the balcony were reflecting and throwing the light at us from the tall two-story windows and the hanging lamps. I explained what was going on. I told her she wasn’t imagining things. She wasn’t crazy, and she wasn’t having a stroke. She was relieved. I asked her if she had good peripheral vision. She said yes. I do too. I could also see the little flashing lights. I had met a really cool new barista when I ordered my coffee. We talked. I know all the baristas at the cafe. They are all cool humans. The new one had an unusual name. I told her I did too. We shared our spellings. Good, another cool human to add to the bunch. Meanwhile, back upstairs I watched as three other women did the same table shifting I had done. They each put something down on the table, went to get their coffee when their name was called, and then chose a different table. Like I said, an odd day. I realized I was going to write about all of this so I gave the woman who had asked about the flashing lights my Medium.com info in case she wanted to read it. We hit it off. She’s fairly new to town too. Turns out she’s the new barista’s mother. We’re both Italian. We both grew up in mafia towns. I told her about the table shiftings that were happening. I told her how cool I thought her daughter was. She took my contact info. I went back downstairs when they started to take lunch orders. I told the new barista, “I met your mother. I really like her.” The other baristas laughed. They’re used to me and the way my life goes. They gave me a little wooden bus on wheels as my table marker. When I got back upstairs there was a man with two small children and a dog sitting where the barista’s mother had been. She had left shortly after our second interaction. The man’s youngest, who was sitting in a booster seat, started crying and pointing at something he wanted. It sounded like “box”. The dad was very confused. I realized the child was saying “bus” and handed over my table marker. I wrote a poem about their dog and left.

Cinse Bonino
2023