Coffee.
That’s what it’s about.
Seattle.
Coffee.
And some pointy tower like thing.
Of all the many nice things about Seattle, one of them would be the street corners. Obviously the city’s forefathers had the foresight to reserve every corner in town so that convenient establishments for the vending of either one of 2 commodities could occur:
- Beer (You may have heard of this stuff. I think it’s going to catch on. I really do.)
and
- Coffee
Now, the Beer I can understand but the proliferation of coffee shops has reached epic proportions and are more numerous than the snakes of St. Patrick’s legend little known fact…St. Patrick and the snakes are a myth similar to the professed innocence of Marion Berry, only much, much, MUCH more believable
There are also some very nice neighbourhoods in the Downtown Seattle area, these areas are easy to classify into neat little categories like:
- “Quaint”
and
- “What’s that smell?”
Aside from the olfactory evidence a good way to tell the difference in neighbourhoods is to count the number of raving lunatics laying on the sidewalk. The ones that are standing and/or moving don’t count as they tend to wander off and before you know it you are trying to count Hobos and you find yourself saying “Hey! where did that guy with no pants go?..no, not “that” one, the other one, you know, the one with teeth”. Truly. The most impressive ones are the ones sprawled out right in the middle of the side walk. Not just sitting on the curb or against a building but RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SIDEWALK!. These guys don’t go halfway. These guys are committed. You don’t see this kind of effort everyday, as a matter of fact many less achieving Hobos spend lots of time just leaning against stuff. Just LEANING!. Lazy really.
Anyway, after counting Hobos all day you start to wonder “what’s with all these Hobos?. It sure is lots of work counting them” and then it dawns on you.
Too much Coffee.
Remember Earl in shipping? Always had a cup of Joe in his hands? Sweated allot? Yeah, the guy that had that nervous twitch, you know, the “eye thing” yeah, him.
Well, this is where he ended up. Wandering around the World’s Coffee House Capital raving about God, Cheese and how “They’s gonna take care “o” bizness, brotha’, you just watch ole dog, you jess watch! Hey mista gimme your shoes!”.
I’m sure one of these guys was him. I recognized the twitch. I would have said “Hi” but he seemed angry. Actually most of the Hobos seemed “angry”, usually at themselves because when alone they would launch into loud self-berating dialogue yelled into a empty Coke can that they were pretending was a cell phone and that mostly sounded like this:
“Fuck you up. Yeah, I said Fuck you up”
“I don’t think so Motherfucker”
“I wish I had some Cheese”
“Me too”
“You’re holding out on me dog”
“Fuck you Bitch.”
“Please hold for Mr. Filbernuts”
and so on…
It is a good thing that most of them had a third personality inside who played the role of peace maker or there could have been trouble, although my associates thought the idea of a Homeless guy with no pants, no teeth, screaming into an empty Coke can and beating the crap out of himself was funny, I did not.
My discerning sense of humour was holding out for the addition of an Equestrian traffic cop and a legless midget but hey, I got high standards.
Sure I have my own Hobos in my city but I think that the years of dumpster diving into Starbuck’s coffee-ground-filled dumpsters have given the Seattle Hobo’s an edge over their Northern Neighbours, a quirkiness not usually seen north of the 49th. Kinda like the “exotica” of the Hobo nation. Maybe it’s the fact that you can’t pee on a street corner in Downtown Seattle without hitting a Coffee house (I know this because we saw many Hobo’s trying!) and the caffeine buzz is a palpable vibe that seems to effect people through osmosis but I’ll tell you, the entertainment value buck for buck can not be beat.
Of course, I could be wrong. This could be caused by having Fat, Moustachioed, yappy women sit next to you on your airplane flight but that’s another theory all together.
Leave room for cream please.
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”
~ T. S. Eliot
