A Cup of Joe (and Bill and Hank and Ted)

It’s Friday morning in Moscow, and as always, I’m having an Americano, two sugars. In the dim cavern of One World, my favorite— and undoubtedly Moscow’s finest—coffee shop, I select a wooden table that insists I slip folded paper under the base for stability. Today, I’m here to write.

A group of four men enter, I can tell they’ve been here before by the way they secure their table and then stand in line for coffee. They laugh and joke, they’re enjoying the later end of middle age, perhaps the beginning of their near-elderly years. One says, “Mind if we snag this chair?”

“Please, go ahead,” I say, smiling in a way that’s meant to tell them I’m friendly too. Their voices overlap, richly layered like the green and gold hills of the Palouse, and they chuckle, “You’ll probably regret it.” As far as I can tell, one or two work for the United States Post Office, and they warn me again, “He was just released from the asylum.” “It really is a sort of an asylum, the USPS.”

Now I’m pretending to write, which isn’t exactly accurate because I am writing, transcribing bits of their conversation, which I had not planned but am happily—energetically—doing. “Did you hear I applied for a Missionary position? Didn’t get it, because the woman came out on top.” “Come on guys, that was funny. It wasn’t even a pun. Come on guys, now that’s funny.”

The conversation turns to old age, and the funny one who asked for the chair says to the one who is noticeably older, “In your old age, you’re always getting up at night. It’s making it really hard to be with your wife, you know, I never know when you’re going to be up.” It seems that sex, with or without those tiny blue pills, sells at any age, or at the very least, fuels the male fire. This, it seems, is the universality of the human experience.

They discuss Broadway and Hollywood noting that they too should try their hand at movie making, though, like the investments of Groucho, this might not be the best choice. These men are wise in the ways of wealth, a characteristic, two remark, they share with David Letterman. The other two are more skeptical, admitting they like Letterman more than the other late night talk show hosts, though he looks and sounds like a drunk.

One has traveled to Costa Rica where he stayed with a 300-pound man who snored so loud that the earplugs didn’t help. One finds it improbable that the man was both 300 pounds and an aggressive snorer.; one remembers a story about a man who asked him to travel abroad and ask for a tall gringo who used to kick for the University of Idaho.

People have a fascination with people watching (the other people watching me…thanks, Jack Johnson.) For example, the popular website, overheardinnewyork.com, sparked the creation of similar sites, Craigslist popularized missed connections, and texts from last night documents the alcohol indulgent lives of college students around the United States.

In 2006, The New York Times published an article about people-watching, and the role it plays in understanding a city, which I believe to be true. In Moscow, Idaho, we prefer the old fashioned approach to getting to know a city. We observe from afar, we initiate conversation, and eventually, we get to know each other over a cup of coffee.