Drinking Expired Neo-Citron

There’s a bunch of people at Cafe 1842 tonight. I’m sitting quietly at a table along the wall, with my back to the stairs up to the Barley Works. I’m drinking a Double Americano Numi Desert Lime tea with honey (or something). I’ve got a bit of a sore throat this evening, and I’ve had enough coffee today. I took a suggestion from the server here. I haven’t seen her in a while, so my theory on the turn-over at this place appears to have some weight behind it. She seems to be doing evening shifts.
The tea smells like that chemical lime you find in that green margarita salt you buy at Homesense — not good. It tastes a little like a bad throat drop, but that’s kind of what I was looking for (aside from the “bad” part), so it’ll do.
The nameless karaoke lounge next door has some bad tunes emanating from it. Sounds like tribal trashcan banging, which might be nice on its own, but I know there’s some inane melody associated with it, not to mention some drunken, discordant singing as well.
No, the tea’s more like expired Neo-Citron … yeah, with that green margarita salt in it. Mmmn, *weak* expired Neo-Citron.
Some trendy couples passing through here tonight. Couples, mostly — few single people. There’s only myself, some ugly loner guy watching TV, and a brainy-looking blonde with a Vaio. She’s in my usual spot, in the corner, and she’s got a bright track light shining down on her. Glad I’m sitting in the dark over here. In the mornings, the track lights are turned off.
There’s this really noisy chick in an orange turtleneck a couple of seats away from me. She’s monologuing on about some kind of social work she’s doing with refugee kids from 3rd world countries. She’s talking a lot of empty words at her poor friend who seems resigned to listen to this endless flood of culture issues, name dropping, and what sounds conspicuously like university-grade sociology terms.
A couple of loud jocks and a scrawny jockette breezed through on their way to the karaoke place — no wait, they’ve turned around and grabbed a Scrabble board. Uh oh, they’re going to be playing Scrabble.
Anyway…
Weekend was good, except for the, uh, several inches of snow…. Friday we partied at Starlight with a big crowd of friends. After last call, six of us headed to Mel’s for an early (early) breakfast. We then went home and slept for about 3 hours, then woke up and (for some inexplicable reason) drove to Conestoga Mall to stand in line for 2 hours, in the hopes of buying a rain barrel for $20. Yes, we actually did this. I wasn’t hungover, but I was sleepy enough not to dress properly for the 3C weather, spitting rain, and high winds. Seriously, the lineup snaked all the way through the Zellers side of the mall’s parking lot and went out on to the street, all the way up to the car dealership on Davenport. After we got the barrel, we seriously pondered why went through all the trouble. We went to 1842 for breakfast number 2, then home to sleep.
That’s kind of what the weekend was like, rainy, snowy, not a lot going on. Did some cleaning, reading, watching of TV, etc. We even tried to get out to see “Kung Fu Hustle,” but the only theatre showing it had a damaged print. We’ll try to get out to see it this week — sounds like an awesome film.
(geez, that woman is still monologuing — something about bombs and Canada and shit…. a hypothetical situation of some kind, about what Canadian refugees would do in a time of war, etc, etc.)
The “tea” is mostly gone. I’m kind of surprised I kept drinking it. Throat isn’t feeling much better, but now my stomach hurts. Think I need to go home and drink some expired Neo-Citron.