ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

My roommate and I went to Toto’s Coffeehouse on Johnson Drive today for the first time, since we’ve been curious about that place since we moved here last summer. We were helped by a girl with a t-shirt with the words “Ex-boyfriends made me gay” printed on the front. She had a kind of shelf butt that fascinated me with its apparent defiance of gravity and physics, and was very friendly to us, leading me to believe that she thought we were a lesbian couple. Probably all the hand holding. Ha, ha!

She was nice, and even brought our food out to us instead of making us wait at the counter. We sat at a small table near the center of the cafe, where I felt acutely uncomfortable. Part of it is that the table was very tall and it felt kind of weird. Also, I felt fearful that I could at any time be discovered as a fraud, for people at these types of establishments are in my experience often very liberal and typically fancy themselves very socially sophisticated, two counts on which I am lacking.

In my imagination I felt that it was only a short wait until someone approached and said, “Excuse me, but we didn’t realize that you’re fiscally conservative. Let me please show you the door.” We eavesdropped a little bit on a table of three having some kind of business meeting, finished our Italian sodas, and left. The food was good, and I especially liked the cream cheese frosting on my carrot cake. But the people at the restaurant seemed pensive, as if their thick-rimmed glasses and lattes made them feel quite desolate about the state of the world. Maybe that’s what being a socially conscious trendster does to you. Maybe I would have liked it more if I hadn’t felt so awkward and exposed sitting at a high table in the middle of everything with people all around potentially looking at me. I might go for a greasy spoon or an evil corporate chain next time.