My name is Brad. I am a writer, I am awkward in social situations, and I spend a lot of time in coffee shops trying to escape all of the terribly distracting things I find at home (video games, movies, tv, cats, comics, vitamin water, robots, etc.). I rotate amongst local coffee shops throughout the week so that no single location becomes too familiar with my presence. Spending any appreciable amount of time in one place is bound to make you privy to the occasional odd situation, but I have come to believe that coffee shops are breeding grounds for weird. The following is my account of the wonderfully weird and horribly awkward situations I have encountered.

It Was Like ‘Nam, But With More Sex.

As I was grabbing my coffee from the counter, I picked up just a fragment of a conversation from a nearby table…

I had a flashback of having sex with a guy my sister went out with.

I don’t think you understand what flashback means. That, or you’re a whore.

Two Trash Cans Diverged in the Woods…

A man had some papers he needed to throw away. There were a multitude of options:

A) Trash can by door.
B) Trash can by counter.
C) Trash can near the place with all the creamer and sugar and cinnamon and stuff.
D) Trash can in the men’s room.

Which option did he choose?

He went a write-in of…

E) Trash can in the ladies room. Twice.

Stop Looking At Me, Sir.

I found it exceptionally hard to get anything accomplished with this tote bag staring at me. Not only was it creepy for obvious reasons, but the face also closely resembles how I picture myself in my mind’s eye.

The Fifth Sense.

An incredibly perceptive child, roughly nine yeas of age, walked into Starbucks with his mother and said this…

“It smells like coffee in here.”

Like a good mother, she chose not to dignify his statement with a response.  Also, he might have had aspergers.

Pandemic Panic.

So I’ve been a little sick as of late.  That has contributed to the lack of posts (because I haven’t been going out to coffee shops).  I’m pretty much better now, but I still cough once in a while.  Sometimes in public.

I was sitting in a particularly crowded Pete’s Coffee with an open chair next to me when a man sat down.  As soon as ass met chair, I coughed once in my hand.  He immediately bounced back up as if the chair sprung him out. He moved to the other side coffee shop.   He must have known I love to hug pigs.  And give them butterfly kisses.

Is This Socially Acceptable?

I honestly don’t know if this is an okay thing for someone to do? I mean, the guy in the background is technically wearing even less footwear (open toed sandals) but feet out of shoes for any appreciable amount of time just seems odd at a place that is technically considered an eatery. And while I hate to play the double-standard card, this is especially true in my book for a male (which, though it may not be clear in the photo, this person was).

Trampy Mother Knows Best.

There were two girls discussing their various piercings and how their families reacted.  As I was walking past, I caught this key bit of conversation:

Miss Robinson: My mom didn’t want me to get a bellybutton piercing.  She said she’d love for me to have one if I had the stomach for it, but I don’t.

Though I was on my way out, I’m sure she probably added that her mother thought she had an excellent lower back and should probably get some sort of Asian symbol tattooed over her ass.  That or a thigh tiger.  A thighger.

Does Ed Hardy Make Scrubs?

One of the problems with eavesdropping is that the circumstances aren’t always optimal.  Sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I can only pick up bits and pieces of a conversation.  Most of the time that makes the conversation unpostable (such as one story about a lapdance, to which I never heard the conclusion).  Sometimes, however, the pieces are all you need.

This was the case with a table full of douchebags.  I really don’t want to keep using that phrase, but I am at a complete lack for any better terms.  They all seemed to be in med school, with some of them teaching classes.  King Douche was facing away from me.

King Douche: I talked to this fucking class… They were retarded fucking special olympics type… and they would email us fucking underwear “in good condition” with pictures and shit and want us to sell them… I emailed back the cocksuckers… We’re not your fucking slaves…

That was all from one conversation.  I didn’t catch why he was talking to the class, but I’m not sure I even want to know.

King Douche’s Less Douchey Friend (LDF) then changed the topic to discuss bathroom location…

LDF: Man, I gotta take a dump but its too close to that guy in the corner for when I walk out.  Maybe I’ll go to Albertson’s.

Albertson’s, it’s your store.

A bit later, a guy that looked to have some sort of disability walked up to King Douche to ask him a question.  I’m not sure if this person was one of the “special olympics type” that King Douche was referring to earlier, or a fellow med student, but this is how part of their conversation went…

King Douche: I’m going to smash him in the face.
Guy: Why?
King Douche: Because it makes me feel good.  Preemptively smash him in the face.  Just to hear him scream.
Guy: <awkward laughter>

The guy returned to his seat at a less douchey table.

The topic of conversation then turned to a yearbook that they were apparently working with, or had some input on.  I don’t know.  I didn’t hear all of the details, but I did hear this…

Douchey Minion: I don’t want to be on page 64.  I want to be on page 69.

Some bro-laughs followed.  Douchey Minion then looked at something on his computer and said…

Douchey Minion: There’s a picture of us naked?
King Douche: We have no choice.  They do what they want to do.

Apparently yearbook committees have diplomatic immunity.

The conversation then moved on to an article on the internet (hopefully unrelated to the naked yearbook pictures)…

King Douche: There are pictures on yahoo dot com.

Minion checks out his computer for a moment, but seems to come up empty.

Douchey Minion: Yahoo dot com, you said?
King Douche: No, yahoo dot fuckingbananafuck.

In case you were wondering, that domain extension is owned by the small island nation of Fuckingbananafuck.  There isn’t a lot of tourism.

Now back to retards…

King Douche: That retard, I remember, for his fucking interview showed up with a rubix cube.  “Hey, you wanna see this fucking guy do a rubix cube in a minute?”  He said he was the fucking rubix cube champion or some shit.

And that retard was Will Smith, pursuing happyness.

As King Douche finally rose from his throne to leave, he gave everyone fistbumps and high fives.  He even snapped his fingers a few times.  I kid you not, skeptical readers.

Now if all of that wasn’t enough to secure his place in the feminine hygiene isle, let me add that he was using Internet Explorer.

Coffee Isn’t Carbonated, So I Hate You.

A dude just burped on me. He was sitting at the table next to me, turned to face me, burped directly at my ear (about 18 inches from me), got up, then walked outside.  He could have at least burped straight forward.   Thankfully Pete’s doesn’t serve salami flavored coffee.

Twitter and Coffee.

In case anyone is interested, I twitter (tweet?) over at http://twitter.com/bradandcoffee. It’s not like this site in that it doesn’t always relate to coffee, but I felt that I’d pass it along anyway.

Also, thanks to the person who google’d “Brad douchebag name” and ended up here.