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In the mornings, before I head out and join the world at large, I, like most people, like to stop and caffeinate myself. This practice, aside from directly contributing to a caffeine addiction, usually leads me first into a 7-11 for a cheap and particularly damn fine cup of coffee, then to a Starbucks, who’s products I can’t stand, having worked for them, but their outdoor furniture is there for a reason, right? In full view of the Green and Black, similar in spirit and fierce devotion to Mussolini’s Brown shirts, I prominently display my cheap Styrofoam cup and drink that same vicious black brew that my dad drank in the mornings on his way to work. This is not a new routine for me. I’ve done this up and down the east coast, and the only place where I’ve had anyone say a word to me about the appropriateness of it is here, in dear ol’ Virginnie. Carry me home, carry me back…

One particular morning, as I was sitting under the balcony, I had noticed to my immediate right a group of young people. Nicely dressed, all of them smelling vaguely of designer scents, they chatted brightly. After a moment, another joined them, and for the first time that morning, I found myself being spoken to.

“Mind if take this chair?”
“Go ‘head”

I went back to my reading, minus one chair at my table, which didn’t bother me in the least bit, as I wasn’t using it, and wasn’t expecting company. Just sitting near them made me feel beautiful-I hadn’t recovered from the lack of sleep the night before, and in my holey T-shirt and dirty chinos, I was next to beautiful people, who, as far as I could tell, weren’t making snide comments based on how I was dressed, or casting dark stares in my direction. It was only after a minute or two of strained peripheral hearing that I knew why I couldn’t understand them: they were speaking German, fluently at that, and very quickly. All of this told me that they were visiting here, maybe exchange students or particularly well mannered exchange students. Having them near me (and the smile of the girl who borrowed the chair from me) made the sun feel a little warmer, and the day a little more pleasant.

After I finished my vicarious Teutonic basking, I turned to the left, wondering what other wonders the patio held in store for me today. A lone woman was sitting at the table. From the markings on her cup, I could tell she was drinking a designer coffee beverage. The esoteric markings up and down the side told me that she knew what she wanted, and more importantly, that she had the money to back it up. She watched the traffic with a somewhat annoyed, expectant look about her. I decided to mind my own business for a little while, and went inside to get a copy of the Washington Post.

When I had come back outside, the singular woman had company. They were dressed similarly, that is to say, flimsy warm up jackets, t-shirts, and Spandex pants. I wondered how the one woman had so quickly and asexually reproduced into an almost-clone of her, when I noticed that they were talking considerably loud. The only other group out there, the Germans, had to raise their own voices to be heard amongst themselves at their own table. I opened the Style section to read my horoscope:

PICECS: Don’t look now, they’re multiplying. Ignore the soccer moms; they don’t know any better.

I looked up, and over to the left: they had, indeed, multiplied. How are they doing this? They had grown into a group of nine, humming and clucking away. One of them apparently made a sexual joke, to which they all snickered deviously. I wasn’t quite sure of the context, but I heard the phrase “rode like a horse!” This caused loud, smug laughter. The formerly empty outside space and my own pre-work reflective space had been taken over by this group of Spandex wearing, 100% Caucasian upper class females. The sound of their voices alone made the place feel crowded and uncomfortable. When two more showed up, they started diving inside and grabbing the wooden chairs.

The Germans, apparently, had enough at that point. The pretty German girl (I’ve always been a sucker for a blonde) went over to the group and asked, in heavily accented (but grammatically perfect) English, to please quiet down a little. The ladies stared; amazed that someone had the utter audacity to interrupt their own conversation. After several moments passed, and no response, one of the other Germans yelled in his own native tongue (which I admit I asked to be translated for me) to SHUT THE HELL UP! What followed nearly floored me:

“We have more of a right to be here than you do. If you don’t like it, why don’t you get out of America?”

The Germans, instead of pressing the point, took themselves inside. The ladies resumed their pointless chatter. Occasionally, one of them would pop out, light themselves a cigarette, and make a conscious effort to blow smoke at their table, causing protests and loud bouts of coughing. After this happened three or four times, something truly frightful happened. On an unspoken cue, they all stood up, butts flapping like flags under their casual workout clothes, and moved the metal table four feet out, now instead of being under the awning, they were sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. When they sat back down, they started right back in again, with relish and poison.

“Well, I don’t let Marta speak Spanish around Cody.”
“Oh, tell me about it. They come to this country, and don’t even bother to learn the language.”
“It’s amazing, the lack of respect they have. Do you think they blow smoke at other people in Germany?”
“Their foreigners. They don’t know how to act here.”
“My au pair speaks French around the house. At least it’s not Mexican they’re speaking. It just sounds so dirty.”
“My husband speaks dirty to me in Spanish. I don’t understand what he’s saying, but it’s sexy when he does it. When I hear…you know…them speak it, though, it sounds horrible.”

These ladies are the wives, sisters, and daughters of the men I’ve worked for in the past…I recognized the mannerisms-snide, self serving, the expectancy that comes from soft living. I would say that I’ve worked for them, except for the fact that they would either:

• Be working at this very moment, or;
• Have rough hands, not the shiny, smooth palms that speak of pampering.

They were still yammering when I got up and went inside. The Germans were gathered around a large table. When I approached, one of them nodded silently in my direction. I smiled and opened my own pack of cigarettes, offering one to the girl who had smiled at me before the zombie soccer moms had taken over. She looked at me, puzzled, until I nodded through the sliding glass doors at the gathered crowd outside, audible even through the thick glass:

“For them.”

She hit me with that smile again, and I walked out of the building to my car. I pulled around, and looked at them as I drove off, until I lost sight of them, due to the fleet of shining, spotless luxury S.U.V.’s parked on the side of the road.

5/12/2006