I’m sitting in Border’s bookstore café. This is the first time I have taken my computer to a coffee shop and it feels neat, liberated. I’m here pretty much by myself, it’s the odd time of 2:00 in the afternoon when parents are busy picking up their kids or business people are thinking about getting a cup of coffee but not motivated (or tired enough) to get one yet. I’m facing the wall which I notice is painted the exact color of the very cool Seattle’s Best mug I just bought.

Out of the corner of my eye I see a heavy set woman wedged into one of the leather armchairs that spot the café. When I had walked in I noticed her apparently sleeping with her head tipped back and her mouth a bit open. Now she is thumbing through some book. This is not the coziest place I’ve been in, but for my purposes it’s perfect.

When I had my own bookstore back in the 70’s and 80’s it was before the trend of comfort reading/sitting in a bookstore/café. I considered putting coffee shop in my store, but was told by the publisher reps that it wasn’t a good idea. After all, the books would get damaged by the slobs that would spill coffee or whatever and ruin the books which the publisher would then not be able to take back. Since I was a tiny store and no clout, I put in a play area for kids which was a great success and didn’t ruin any books.

The point of all that, aside from sharing a bit of my past, is to point out I never had to deal with folks who would come into the store and park themselves for the better part of the day, taking up space, drooling and generally disrupting the flow of things. However when I worked at Barns & Nobel for a short stint, we had hangers on that we had to ask to leave. Believe me that was un-fun; shaking the shoulder of a perfect stranger who is snoring and sputtering, then violently starts awake looking at you with malevolence, is a job best left to a bouncer, if you ask me. A note: men seem to sleep with their heads back and mouth open and women slouch over with their head down in a protective position, except for my café companion, but her mouth wasn’t wide open, just slightly ajar.

Perhaps I should do this café thing more often, I’m feeling quite inspired. But maybe it’s the coffee, decaf though it is. I usually write at night after I’ve walked Pepper – that’s probably it. What sane person would try to be clever and witty when they have one foot in the bed, so to speak.

So this café thing might be a new trend for me. We don’t have a lot of them in Sarasota, but enough to keep me busy checking them out for a while. There are more people coming in so I’m getting distracted by the conversations fluttering around me…time to go.