coffee talk

I like Panera Bread.

The music isn't as loud or nearly as terrible as it is at Starbucks.

The breakfast is good, and typically I can get a few things done while sipping back some hazelnut coffee and siphoning wi-fi.

I can pretty well be left alone.

This morning, while trying to catch up on my daily caffeine quota, I overheard two elderly ladies talking from the across the room. When I first noticed it, I tuned it out like I tend to do most things.

I continued working on employment applications and that brochure I have to get finished for Jim.

Before I noticed it, I was staring at my yellow coffee mug...listening to their conversation. I was captivated by their stories of old: jobs their parents wouldn't let them have when supermarkets were new, jobs they did get to have that they hated, and boy troubles.

I couldn't stop listening.

Granted, I tried not to - eavesdropping at Panera Bread is not exactly a normal activity. It's kind of creepy, even.

I pretended to be looking at my laptop, but I wasn't. I was listening to stories of days gone by, adventures planned for the week, and headaches in the night.

They spoke of their children and grandchildren.

Annoyances at the grocery store.

The snow in the backyard.

It was almost like watching a movie. A conversation so natural and mesmerizing, it almost seemed scripted.

I was waiting on the great cinematic finale to this conversation. I wondered what great axioms of knowledge would be bestowed on me.

There wasn't one.

One of them got up, went to the restroom, then they left.

And that was that.

And here I sit, sipping coffee from my yellow mug with a sad, Spanish guitar soundtrack. Fitting. My old friends that I never met are now gone.

Best conversation I've had in months.