always charge your ipod

The scene: this morning, 8:20, at the coffee place. I was standing there waiting for my coffee (they don’t move so fast) when i saw the bus outside, stopped at the red light. Of course it pulled away while the barista was pouring the milk, and I said “damn,” just under my breath. The guy behind me in line, perhaps thinking I’d dropped something or sprained an ankle or somesuch (but in hindsight, probably just waiting for any kind of opening) says, “What’s wrong?” Say i: “Nothing, just missed my bus.” “Well, they come along pretty regularly,” says he and I agree and start to walk away. No such luck.

Please bear in mind that at this point I have not had much coffee and am therefore ill-equipped to deal with any kind of situation.

So he says, “Do I detect a slight accent or is it my imagination?” The smart response would have been, “It’s your imagination. You’re crazy. Please go away.” But because of the aforementioned insufficient caffeination level, I defaulted to polite mode. “Probably not your imagination,” I said. This led to him somehow getting out in two sentences that he’s an expert in spotting dialects and speaks five languages and blah blah and do I parle francais? And again, reflex taking over, even though I’ve begun to suspect this is a trap, I mumble en francais that yes of course i do. This opens the floodgates. I find myself sort of inching away backwards, sunglasses on, while this guy close-talks at me (and well over the decibel level required for such a conversation) in French about how he spent a summer there when he was in school and lived in the 18th and do I know Paris and he’s buying a hotel in Montmartre and the Americans in Paris are all idiots (with the implication that he’s the exception, bien sur) and he’s got an Irish passport and wow, I’m thinking, how the hell do I get out of this now? I’m just waiting for a break in the stream to make a polite exit (did I mention how loud this guy was?) and there isn’t one and then he says, “So, you live around here?” Aha, I think. Here’s my chance. “No, my boyfriend lives around the corner. I live across town.” At this point, the guy who’s sitting drinking coffee and reading the paper at the table right next to us, who’s clearly been listening, chokes and almost spits coffee onto his paper, trying not to laugh out loud. I silently curse him for being amused at my pain and not having rescued me with some quip about the Financial Times. Fortunately the gambit worked and Obnoxious Guy made a quick exit, but not before I noticed another bus speeding through the intersection. Jerk.

Moral of the story: if you must venture out in public before you’re sufficiently caffeinated: headphones. Headphones are de rigeur.